Communication of information during a call

ABSTRACT

A request is received from a user of a telephonic device to invoke an application on the telephonic device. A form is displayed to the user using the application. Information input into the form is received by the application along with an indication to submit the form information with a service request to a call handling system. A data communications session between the telephonic device and an application server of the call handling system is established using the application. The form information is provided to the application server. A telephone number of the telephonic device is identified from the form information using which a voice communications session is established with the telephonic device from an interactive voice response system of the call handling system. Voice information is exchanged with the user and text, image or video information is communicated to the user via the voice and data communications sessions respectively.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation (and claims the benefit of priorityunder 35 USC 120) of U.S. application Ser. No. 13/092,101, filed Apr.21, 2011, now allowed, which claims priority to U.S. ProvisionalApplication No. 61/326,636 filed on Apr. 21, 2010 and titled “MULTIMODALAPPLICATION DEVELOPMENT PLATFORM FOR VOICE SOLUTIONS,” and U.S.Provisional Application No. 61/326,616 filed on Apr. 21, 2010 and titled“COMMUNICATION OF INFORMATION DURING A CALL,” both of which areincorporated herein by reference in their entirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The following disclosure relates generally to a communication ofinformation during a call.

BACKGROUND

A user may use a telephonic device to call a number that connects theuser to an interactive voice response system. The interactive voiceresponse system provides pre-recorded voice and audio information to theuser and processes voice information received from the user. Thetelephonic device used by the user may be an intelligent telephonicdevice that includes a display for displaying visual information to theuser, and a processor for processing multimedia information. It may beuseful if the interactive voice response system can interact with theintelligent telephonic device using voice, video, image or textualinformation.

SUMMARY

In a general aspect, multi-modal interaction with a telephonic deviceusing a call handling system is enabled by receiving a request from auser of the telephonic device to invoke an application on the telephonicdevice to request a desired service. A single-field or a multi-fieldform is displayed to the user using the application. Information inputinto the form is received from the user along with an indication tosubmit the form information with a service request to a call handlingsystem. A data communications session across a data network between thetelephonic device and an application server associated with the callhandling system is established using the application. The forminformation is provided to the application server during the datacommunications session. A telephone number of the telephonic device isidentified by the application server based on the form information. Theidentified telephone number is communicated from the application serverto an interactive voice response (IVR) system of the call handlingsystem. A voice communications session is established with thetelephonic device by initiating an outbound call from the IVR to thetelephonic device using the identified telephone number. Content of oneor more voice pages is executed by the IVR to exchange voice informationwith the user during the call via the voice communications session.Content of one or more multimedia pages linked to the one or more voicepages is executed by the application server to communicate text, imageor video information to the user during the call via the datacommunications session.

Particular implementations may include one or more of the followingfeatures. For example, content of one or more multimedia pages linked tothe one or more voice pages may be executed by the application server tocommunicate text and image information to the user during the call viathe data communications session. The application in the telephonicdevice may be configured such that the telephonic device is enabled toexchange text, image, or video data with a voice site via the datacommunications session with the application server and exchange voiceinformation with the voice site via the voice communications sessionwith the IVR. The exchange of voice information with the user via thevoice communications session and the communication of text, image orvideo information to the user via the data communications session mayoccur such that the user is able to exchange voice information whileperceiving or providing the text, image or video information during thecall at the same time.

To execute the content of one or more multimedia pages by theapplication server, the application server may be enabled to executecontent of a particular multimedia page that is linked to a particularvoice page based on a reference to the particular multimedia pageincluded in the particular voice page. To execute the content of theparticular multimedia page by the application server, the IVR may beenabled to send an instruction to the application server based onencountering the reference to the particular multimedia page duringexecution of the content of the particular voice page by the IVR.

To send an instruction to the application server by the IVR, the IVR maybe enabled to send an instruction that instructs the application serverto execute scripts or programming modules corresponding to the contentof the particular multimedia page. To execute the content of one or morevoice pages by the IVR, the IVR may be enabled to execute the content ofa particular voice page that is linked to a multimedia page based on areference to the particular voice page included in the particularmultimedia page. To execute the content of one or more voice pages bythe IVR, the IVR may be enabled to execute the content of the particularvoice page based on the reference to the particular voice page beingencountered during processing of the content of the particularmultimedia page, the executing of the particular voice page occurringupon completion of execution of the content of the multimedia page bythe application server.

To execute the content of one or more voice pages by the IVR, the IVRalso may be enabled to execute scripts that were generated based on thecontent of the one or more voice pages. To execute the content of one ormore multimedia pages by the application server, the application serveralso may be enabled to execute scripts that were generated based on thecontent of the one or more multimedia pages.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a communications system that provides amultimodal application development platform for voice solutions.

FIG. 2 is an illustration of a process for enabling a user to interactwith an application server and an IVR via overlapping communicationssessions.

FIGS. 3A-3F are illustrations of a smart phone graphical user interface(GUI) for a multimodal application.

FIG. 4 illustrates an example of a system that enables multimodalinteraction between a smart phone user and a multimodal interactivevoice response system (MM-IVR).

FIGS. 5A-5N illustrate a GUI for an application development tool that isused by a content provider to create a multimodal voice site.

FIGS. 6A-6D illustrate a GUI for another example of a multimodalapplication on a smart phone.

FIG. 7 is a flow chart illustrating an example of a process using whichthe user of a smart phone may engage in multimodal interaction with anenhanced voice site.

FIG. 8 is a flow chart illustrating an example of a process that isexecuted by a call handling system when a user calls an enhanced voicesite using a smart phone.

FIG. 9 is flowchart illustrating an example of a process for enabling auser of a smart phone to communicate information to a call center or toan interactive voice response system.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

An user of a particular product or service may need to contact customerservice for the product or service for various reasons, for example totroubleshoot a problem the user is experiencing in using the product orservice. In order to contact the customer service and obtain a solutionto the problem, the user may call a known customer service number forthe product or service using a telephonic device accessible to the user.By calling the customer service number, the user may get connected to acall handling system that enables the user to interact with a voice siteassociated with the product or service.

A voice site is a set of scripts or, more generally, programminglanguage modules corresponding to one or more linked pages thatcollectively interoperate to produce an automated interactive experiencewith a user. A standard voice site includes scripts or programminglanguage modules corresponding to at least one voice page and limits theinteraction with the user to an audio communications mode. An enhancedvoice site includes scripts or programming language modulescorresponding to at least one voice page and at least one multimodalaction page linked to the at least one voice page that enableinteraction with the user to occur via an audio communications mode andat least one additional communications mode (e.g., a text communicationsmode, an image communications mode or a video communications mode).Notably, a call may be said to be directed to a voice site if it isdirected to a telephone number that has been defined as corresponding tothe voice site.

The voice site called by the user may be an automated interactive voicesite that is configured to process, using pre-programmed scripts,information received from the user that is input through the telephonicdevice being used by the user, and in response provide information tothe user that is conveyed to the user through the telephonic device. Forstandard voice sites and/or standard telephonic devices, the interactionbetween the user and the voice site may be done using an interactivevoice response system (IVR) provided by a service provider that ishosting the voice site. A standard telephonic device in this context isunderstood to be a telephonic device that is not configured to handleinteraction with a voice site that involves video, images or richtextual information. The IVR is configured to support voice commands andvoice information using text-to-speech processing and natural languageprocessing by using scripts that are pre-programmed for the voice site,for example, voice-extensible markup language (VoiceXML) scripts. TheIVR interacts with the user, by prompting with audible commands,enabling the user to input information by speaking into the telephonicdevice or by pressing buttons on the telephonic device if the telephonicdevice supports dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) signaling (e.g., atouch-one phone). The information input by the user is conveyed to theIVR over a voice communications session that is established between thetelephonic device and the IVR when the call is connected. Upon receivingthe information, the IVR processes the information using thepre-programmed scripts. The IVR may be configured to send audibleresponses back to the user via the telephonic device.

In some implementations, the voice site may be an enhanced voice sitethat is configured to support multimedia information including audio,video, images and text. The telephonic device also may be an advancedtelephonic device (e.g., a smart phone) provided with a display forconveying visual information to the user, and a processor capable ofperforming complex tasks such as logic processing wherein the associatedinstructions may be stored in memory included in the telephonic device.In such circumstances, the advanced telephonic device (hereinafterinterchangeably referred to as “smart phone”) and the enhanced voicesite can interact using one or more of voice, video, images or textinformation and commands.

A multimodal IVR (MM-IVR) may be provided by the call handling servicehosting the voice site to enable the smart phone and the voice site tocommunicate using one or more media (e.g., voice, text or images) asneeded for comprehensive, easily-understood communications. In thiscontext, “multimodal” refers to the ability to handle communicationsinvolving more than one mode, for example, audio communications andvideo communications. In one implementation, the MM-IVR may beconfigured to support calls to multiple different voice sites. Inanother implementation, the MM-IVR may be dedicated to one voice siteand there may be a different MM-IVR for each voice site.

The smart phone may be configured to run a multimodal (MM) applicationthat interacts with the MM-IVR that is supporting the voice site. Inaddition to placing a call to the voice site using a voicecommunications channel, the smart phone may interact with the voice sitevia the multimodal application using a data communications channel thatruns in parallel to the voice communications channel. The audio (e.g.,voice) capture and audio playing is done in the smart phone, but morecomplex and processing-intensive tasks such as speech or imagerecognition and dialog management are executed using the MM-IVR at thecall handling service. For example, the MM-IVR may communicate with theuser using voice over a voice communications session to get basicinstructions and quick feedback; the MM-IVR also may communicate withthe user using text over a parallel data communications session to getan e-mail address associated with the user and using images over thedata communications session for providing a visual sense to the user ofwhat needs to be done.

Using a multimodal application to interact with an enhanced voice sitemay be useful in several situations. For example, the multimodalapplication may be used, in conjunction with the display of the smartphone, to show pictures to the user during troubleshooting a product orservice. The multimodal application also may be used in sending longterms and conditions related to the product or service being used by theuser. In another usage, the multimodal application may be used tocapture data that is not easy to capture via speech, e.g., the user maytake a picture of the product using a camera provided with the smartphone and use the multimodal application to send the picture to thevoice site. In yet another usage, the multimodal application may be usedto show to the user the latest bill associated with the product orservice being used by the user.

As mentioned previously, the voice site may be hosted by a third partyservice provider that facilitates the creation and hosting of voicesites on servers owned and operated by the service provider. The serviceprovider provides a service/method that enables the design, development,and hosting of voice applications that run a thin client on the smartphone that interacts with a fully hosted, on-demand voice solutionplatform/call handling system maintained and managed by the serviceprovider. The service/method provides a way to develop a voice site thatis supported by an MM-IVR system (the server side) and push aninstallation of an application (the client) that would run on the smartphone, as well as a protocol for the client and the server to interactwith each other. The service/method requires the installation of a thinclient engine (e.g., an application) on the smart phone that mediatesbetween the objects and devices in the smart phone and the MM-IVR systemsupporting the voice site hosted on the server.

In the above scenario, the role of the entity providing customer servicethrough the voice site is that of a content provider. The customerservice department of the entity/company (hereinafter referred tointerchangeably as the “content provider”) configures the voice sitethat is to be used for the particular product or service and providesthe logic for the voice site that is to be executed by the MM-IVRsystem, along with the voice, video, image or textual information thatmay be exchanged with the user calling the voice site. The contentprovider may do so by using a graphical user interface provided by thethird party service provider for configuring the voice site. The serviceprovider handles the interpretation and compilation of the informationprovided by the content provider, and the creation and hosting of thevoice site based on the information.

The service/method thus enables the deployment of voice-enabledsolutions on smart phones without requiring the content provider toengage in complex programming. Applications may be designed by thecontent provider using a web-based interface and served on demand tosmart phone clients. Such clients can be add-ons that smart phoneapplications can plug into. In addition, the service/method enablesusers to interact with an application in a multimodal manner. Theapplication is referred to as multimodal in that it enables users tointeract with the voice solution platform using multiple differentcommunications modes. For example, the user may provide information tothe voice solution platform by writing or speaking and may receiveinformation from the voice solution platform by hearing or reading.Accordingly, in this example, four different types of interactioncombinations are possible between the user and the voice solutionplatform: (1) speak/hear, (2) speak/read, (3) write/read, and (4)write/hear. The same client/server engine/UI can run all four types ofinteraction combinations and the same application development tool canbe used to build all four types of interaction combinations.

Referring to FIGS. 1 and 2, a user of an intelligent mobile telephone(i.e., a smart phone) 110 is able to interact with the smart phone toinvoke a multimodal application on the phone to request a service from avoice site that is provided, for example, by a customer servicedepartment (210). The service may be, for example, a request to purchasea particular product or service offered by or made available by thecustomer service department through the voice site. For example, theuser may indicate a desire to request a service from the voice site byselecting a graphically displayed icon on a graphical user interface(GUI) of the smart phone 110 to thereby invoke a multimodal applicationstored in the smart phone 110 with which the user can interact toinitiate a service request. Additionally or alternatively, the user mayindicate a desire to request a service by simply inputting, via manualselection or otherwise, a telephone number associated with the customerservice department into the smart phone 110 and initiating a calldirected to the inputted telephone number. The call handling systemreceives the call and then interacts with the smart phone to launch themultimodal application. In some implementations, the smart phone 110 mayinclude a data store that stores data indicating which inputtedtelephone numbers correspond to conventional phone calls (e.g., via VoIPor via TDM) and which inputted telephone numbers correspond tomultimodal smart phone applications that will be launched by the smartphone upon entry of the corresponding number. In some implementations,each of the multimodal telephone numbers has its own multimodalapplication associated with it. In other implementations, all multimodaltelephone numbers are associated with the same multimodal applicationsuch that the same multimodal application is launched upon entry of anyof the multimodal telephone numbers.

The multimodal application(s) stored on the smart phone 110 may be athin client capable of interacting with a full hosted, on demand voicesolution platform. The voice solution platform may include a callhandling system 150, an application server 140 and a data store 160communicatively coupled to each other, as shown in FIG. 1. The callhandling system 150 may include an IVR system 152 configured to receivea call from the smart phone 110 when the smart phone 110 is operatingunder the control of the thin client. In some implementations, the callhandling system 150 may additionally include a call center 154.

In some implementations, the thin client may be a conventional smartphone application that includes an add-on or plug-in that providesmultimodal functionality to a conventional smart-phone application. Thethin client and/or the add-on or plug-in may be downloaded from a hostserver by the smart phone 110.

Upon the user invoking the multimodal application or subsequent to theuser invoking the multimodal application and then requesting submissionof the service request through interactions with the multimodalapplication, a data communications session is setup between the smartphone 110 and the application server 140 in response to the servicerequest (220). The data communications session may be setup, forexample, by the smart phone 110, under the direction of the multimodalapplication, constructing or accessing a URL for the application server140 and using an application programming interface (API) and the URL tocommunicate with the application server 140 over the data network 130.

The smart phone 110 also may setup a parallel voice communicationssession with the IVR 152 or, more generally, with the call handlingsystem 150 (220). The voice communications session may be setup, forexample, by the smart phone 110, under the direction of the multimodalapplication, accessing a telephone number corresponding to the IVR 152and placing a call (via, for example, TDM or VoIP) over the telephonenetwork 120 using the accessed telephone number. The accessed telephonenumber may be a number inputted by the user when invoking theapplication, or alternatively, may be a telephone number previouslystored in connection with the multimodal application (e.g., a pre-stored1-800 number associated with the particular service requested by theuser). The voice communications session also may be setup with the IVR152 by the smart phone 110 simply calling the IVR 152 using the nativetelephony service of the smart phone 110 and then the multimodalapplication being launched through subsequent interactions with the IVR152. The data communications session and the voice communicationssession overlap in time, such that the smart phone is able tocommunicate with the IVR 152 and the application server 140 in parallel.

The application server 140 may allocate a shared memory space in a datastore 160 to store state data reflecting the interaction with the userduring the two parallel communications sessions (230). In someimplementations, the IVR 152, rather than the application server 140allocates the shared memory space in the data store 160. The applicationserver 140 and the IVR 152 are able to read data from and/or write datato the shared memory space (240). For example, the application server140 may inform the IVR 152 of the location of the shared memory spaceand may setup access rights with the data store 160 to ensure that theapplication server 140 and the IVR 152 are each able to read data fromand/or write data to the shared memory space in real-time during thecommunications sessions.

The user is able to interact with the voice solution platform byexchanging voice communications with the IVR 152 and exchanging datacommunications with the application server 140 in real-time during theoverlapping communications sessions (250). In particular, the user isable to receive information from the IVR 152 by hearing informationspoken by the IVR 152 to the user and is able to provide information tothe IVR 152 by speaking information into the phone (251).

The traditional processing functions of the IVR 152 may be distributedbetween the IVR 152 and the multimodal application to decrease thecomplexity of the multimodal aspect of the application. Specifically,the audio capture and audio playing may be performed by the multimodalapplication on the smart phone 110. However, expensive and complextasks, such as, for example, speech recognition and dialog management,may be performed by the IVR 152. This separation of functions allows themultimodal aspect of the application to be relatively thin (i.e.,require minimal processing and/or memory resources when stored andexecuted) and not involve complex programming by the developer of theapplication. Instead, the complex IVR-related programming tasks arepushed to the IVR 152. In some implementations, a contentprovider/application developer can design a multimodal add-on for anexisting conventional (i.e., non-multimodal) smart phone application andthe voice application programming for the IVR 152 using a singleweb-based voice solution application development interface. The add-oncan then be downloaded by the smart phone 110 from a data store acrossthe data network 130 and plugged into the conventional smart phoneapplication to convert the conventional smart phone application into amultimodal application.

The user is also able to provide data (e.g., text data, video data,and/or audio data) to the application server 140 and receive data (e.g.,text data, video data, and/or audio data) from the application server140 over the data network 130 during the data communications session byinteracting with the smart phone 110 (252). While the IVR 152 and theapplication server 140 interact with the user, the IVR 152 and theapplication server 140 may read and write data in real-time into theallocated shared memory such that, for example, the IVR 152 and theapplication server 140 may be concurrently aware of the state of theinteraction with the user of the smart phone 110 (253). In someimplementations, the IVR 152 and/or the application server 140 maydirectly access the shared memory to monitor the information stored inthe shared memory for the current interaction with the user such thatchanges in state variables and/or addition of new state variables areautomatically detected by the IVR 152 or the application server 140. Inother implementations, the IVR 152 may send a signal to the applicationserver 140 over the data network 130 informing the application server140 when a state variable has been changed in or new data has been addedto the shared memory by the IVR 152. Similarly, the application server140 may send a signal to the IVR 152 over the data network 130 informingthe IVR 152 when a state variable has been changed in or new data hasbeen added to the shared memory over the data network 130.

Use of the shared memory may allow the voice solution platform tointelligently select which communications mode is preferable forreceiving or providing information to a user of the smart phone 110during the interaction with the user (i.e., during the overlappingcommunications sessions with the user via the smart phone 110). Forexample, an IVR is effective in delivering data serially and relativelyquickly as audio. The IVR is also effective in gathering data from theuser that is amenable to being structured as a multiple choice question(e.g., a yes/no question) to which the user may provide a short responseby depressing buttons corresponding to the choices on the phone or byspeaking short phrases that do not require too much natural languageprocessing or interpretation. The IVR, however, may not be effective inreceiving data that involves longer and/or more elaborate responses thatare difficult to decipher such as, for example, full name and physicaladdress capture, and e-mail address capture.

In contrast, the application server 140 is effective in deliveringdifferent pieces complex data to the user that require more time for theuser to digest than that provided by serial audio presentation of thedata or that are simply not amenable to translation into audio. Suchdata may be, for example, a detailed multi-field form or a page havingmultiple distinct textual, video, and/or image data items (e.g., a voicepage or a web page). The application server 140 is effective incapturing complex data from the user such as, for example, free-formwriting or writing corresponding to a full name, a physical address,and/or an e-mail address of the user.

In the context of this discussion, a “page” is a discrete programmingroutine configured to perform a discrete function. A page may be definedby a user through an interaction with, for example, a GUI in which theuser may indicate the type of programming routine for the page and mayoptionally further indicate one or more other pages linked to the page.Processing may then proceed to the one or more other linked pages aftercompletion of execution of the page or, alternatively, after initiationof execution of the page but before completion of execution of the page.A page may be compiled into one or more programming language modules orscripts after the page is defined by the user through interaction withthe GUI. The one or more programming language modules or scripts may beused, for example, by an IVR and/or an application server to execute thediscrete programming routine to thereby perform the discrete function ofthe page. A “voice page” is a particular type of page that is configuredto perform the function of delivering and/or receiving audible contentto a user. The user is typically a caller to an IVR and the audiblecontent is typically speech. FIGS. 5A-5N illustrate examples of one ormore pages provided by a GUI of an application development tool.

Accordingly, in some implementations, the multimodal application (i.e.,the client application) on the smart phone and the correspondingapplications executed by the IVR 152 and the application server 140(i.e., the server applications) may be designed to intelligently chooseamong different communications modes when working together to gatherdata from or provide data to the user of the smart phone 110. Forexample, if the data to be gathered can be obtained through the answerof a yes/no question, then the applications may request the data fromthe user via prompting the user to speak a yes/no answer into the smartphone that is received and interpreted by the IVR 152. In contrast, ifthe data to be gathered is more complex, such as an e-mail address ofthe user, the applications may request that the user input the data as,for example, text that is received and interpreted by the applicationserver 140. As stated previously, in some implementations, applicationscan be developed that communicate data between the user and the voicesolution platform using any of the four different types of interactioncombinations noted previously. Some or all of the data that is gatheredfrom the user and, in some implementations, some or all of the data thatis communicated to the user during the communications sessions may bestored in the shared memory in real-time such that both the applicationserver 140 and the IVR 152 may access the data in real-time during thesessions. This data, along with other state variable data, may be usedto ensure, for example, that the processing of the application server140 and the processing of the IVR 152 are synchronized to provide acohesive multimodal interaction with the user of the smart phone 110.

In some implementations, for some or all requests for information fromthe user made by the voice solution platform during the communicationssessions, the user may be prompted by the IVR 152 (e.g., through a voiceprompt) and/or by the application server 140 (e.g., through a textualprompt displayed on a display of the smart phone 110) to choose a modefor providing the requested information to the voice solution platform(254). For example, the user may be prompted to choose whether toprovide the requested information to the voice solution platform byspeaking the information into the smart phone 110 to be received andinterpreted by the IVR 152 or, alternatively, by providing theinformation as data (e.g., text data) to the application server 140 viaselection or input of the data through interactions with the smart phone110. Depending on the selection made by the user, the information mayeither be collected by the IVR 152 or by the application server 140.Some or all of the information that is collected may be stored in theshared memory to allow both the IVR 152 and the application server 140to access or otherwise be aware of the collected data for subsequentprocessing during or subsequent to the communications sessions. In oneimplementation example, the user may be prompted by the IVR 152 throughexecution of scripts corresponding to a question page to select acommunication mode for providing the requested data. Depending on theuser's selection, the processing may subsequently branch to scriptscorresponding to one or more multimodal action pages to enable the userto provide the requested data as text data, video data or image data.Question voice pages and multimodal action pages are described later inreference to FIGS. 5A-5N. A multimodal action page, as mentioned in thisdiscussion, is a page configured to perform an action that enablesmultimodal communications with a user.

In some implementations, for some or all pieces of information providedto the user by the voice solution platform, the user may be prompted bythe IVR 152 (e.g., through a voice prompt) and/or by the applicationserver 140 (e.g., through a textual prompt displayed on a display of thesmart phone 110) to choose a mode for receiving the information from thevoice solution platform (255). For example, the user may be prompted tochoose whether to receive the information from the voice solutionplatform through the IVR 152 speaking the information to the user or,alternatively, through the application server 140 communicating theinformation as, for example, text to be displayed on a display of thesmart phone 110 to the user. Depending on the selection made by theuser, the information may either be provided by the IVR 152 or by theapplication server 140. Some or all of the information that is providedmay be stored in the shared memory to allow both the IVR 152 and theapplication server 140 to access or otherwise be aware of the collecteddata for subsequent processing during or subsequent to thecommunications sessions. In one implementation example, the user may beprompted by the IVR 152 through execution of scripts corresponding to aquestion page to select a communication mode for receiving data.Depending on the user's selection, the processing may subsequentlybranch to scripts corresponding to one or more multimodal action pagesto provide data to the user as text data, video data or image data.Question voice pages and multimodal action pages are described later inreference to FIGS. 5A-5N.

Typically, the division of processing functions between the smart phone110 and the voice solution platform results in the multimodalapplication directing the smart phone 110 to communicate with theapplication server 140 and the IVR 152 to mediate between objects anddevices on or accessible to the smart phone 110 and the correspondingvoice application executed by the IVR 152. The objects may be internalobjects stored within the smart phone 110 (e.g., songs, contact, andapplications) or may be external objects (e.g., information aboutshipments, order status, etc.) accessed by the smart phone 110 fromexternal sources (e.g., from the application server or elsewhere acrossthe data network 130). The above-described techniques may provide a wayto develop applications on a server-side of the offering (i.e., on thevoice solution platform side) and then push an install of a thin clientto be run on the smart phone 110 that includes, among other things, aprotocol for the smart phone 110 and the voice solution platform tointeract with each other.

The smart phone 110 is configured to place and receive calls across thetelephone network 115 and to establish data communications sessions withservers, such as the application server 140, across the data network 130for transmitting and receiving data. The smart phone 110 may be acellular phone or a mobile personal digital assistant (PDA) withembedded cellular phone technology. The smart phone 110 may be acomputer that includes one or more software or hardware applications forperforming communications between the smart phone 110 and servers acrossthe data network 130. The smart phone 110 may have various input/outputdevices with which a user may interact to provide and receive audio,text, video, and other forms of data. For example, the smart phone 110may include a screen on which may be displayed form data and with whichthe user may interact using a pointer mechanism to provide input tosingle-field or multi-field forms.

The telephone network 120 may include a circuit-switched voice network,a packet-switched data network, or any other network able to carry voicedata. For example, circuit-switched voice networks may include a PublicSwitched Telephone Network (PSTN), and packet-switched data networks mayinclude networks based on the Internet protocol (IP) or asynchronoustransfer mode (ATM), and may support voice using, for example,Voice-over-IP, Voice-over-ATM, or other comparable protocols used forvoice data communications.

The data network 130 is configured to enable direct or indirectcommunications between the smart phone 110, the application server 140,and the call handling system 150 (or the IVR 152). Examples of thenetwork 130 include the Internet, Wide Area Networks (WANs), Local AreaNetworks (LANs), analog or digital wired and wireless telephone networks(e.g., Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), Integrated ServicesDigital Network (ISDN), and Digital Subscriber Line (xDSL)), radio,television, cable, satellite, and/or any other delivery or tunnelingmechanism for carrying data.

In some implementations, the data network 130 and the telephone network120 are implemented by a single or otherwise integrated communicationsnetwork configured to enable voice communications between the smartphone 110 and the call handling system 150 (or the IVR 152), and toenable communications between the smart phone 110, the applicationserver 140, and the call handling system 150.

The application server 140 is configured to establish a datacommunications session with the smart phone 110 and to receive and senddata to the smart phone 110 across the data network 130. The applicationserver 140 also is configured to communicate with the call handlingsystem 150 to send data received from the smart phone 110 to the IVR152. The application server 140 also may send other application-relateddata that did not originate from the smart phone 110 to the IVR 152 or,more generally, to the call handling system 150. The application server140 also is configured to communicate with the data store 160 to readand/or write user interaction data (e.g., state variables for a datacommunications session) in a shared memory space as describedpreviously. The application server 140 may be one or more computersystems that operate separately or in concert under the direction of oneor more software programs to perform the above-noted functions. In someimplementations, the application server 140 and the call handling system150 are a single integrated computer system.

The IVR 152 may include a voice gateway coupled to a voice applicationsystem via a data network. Alternatively, the voice gateway may be localto the voice application system and connected directly to the voiceapplication system. The voice gateway is a gateway that receives usercalls from or places calls to voice communications devices, such as thesmart phone 110, and responds to the calls in accordance with a voiceprogram. The voice program may be accessed from local memory within thevoice gateway or from the application system. In some implementations,the voice gateway processes voice programs that are script-based voiceapplications. The voice program, therefore, may be a script written in ascripting language such as, for example, voice extensible markuplanguage (VoiceXML) or speech application language tags (SALT). Thevoice application system includes a voice application server and allcomputer systems that interface and provide data to the voiceapplication server. The voice application system sends voice applicationprograms or scripts to the voice gateway for processing and receives, inreturn, user responses. The user responses are analyzed by the voiceapplication system and new programs or scripts that correspond to theuser responses may then be sent to the voice gateway for processing. Thevoice application system may determine which programs or scripts toprovide to the voice gateway based on some or all of the informationreceived from the smart phone 110 via the application server 140. TheIVR 152 also is configured to communicate with the data store 160 toread and/or write user interaction data (e.g., state variables for adata communications session) in a shared memory space as describedpreviously.

The call center 154 of the call handling system may include, among othercomponents, an inbound call queue, an outbound call request queue, acall router, an automatic call distributor (“ACD”) administrator, and aplurality of call center agents. The call center 154 may receive one ormore calls from one or more voice communication devices, such as thesmart phone 110, via the telephone network 120 and may make one or moreoutbound calls to voice communication devices via the telephone network120. The call center 154 may determine an appropriate call center agentto route the call to or to assign an outbound call to. The determinationof an appropriate agent may be based on agent performance metrics andinformation known about the inbound or outbound call. The determinationof the appropriate agent may, for example, be based on some or all ofthe form information and/or other optional information received from thesmart phone 110.

FIGS. 3A to 3F are illustrations of a smart phone GUI for a multimodalapplication. As shown in FIG. 3A, the smart phone display 300 may be adisplay that includes graphical buttons or icons that the user canselect to interact with the multimodal application stored on the smartphone 110. The user can select the graphical buttons or icons by, forexample, depressing them with a finger or stylus (when the display istouch sensitive) or otherwise using some other pointer mechanism toselect them (e.g., by using a mouse pointer that moves across the screenvia a touch sensitive pad or a trackball).

FIG. 3A shows an example of an initial display 300 presented to the userupon the user selecting to invoke a multimodal application correspondingto the Washington Gazette. The initial display 300 is a welcome pagethat prompts the user to enter his or her e-mail address. The user mayselect a speak graphical button 302 to provide the e-mail address byspeaking the e-mail address into the smart phone 110 such that thespoken e-mail address is then provided to the voice solution platformvia the IVR 152. Alternatively, the user may select a keypad graphicalbutton 304 to provide the e-mail address by typing the e-mail addressinto the smart phone 110 such that the typed e-mail address is thenprovided to the voice solution platform via the application server 140.Selection of the buttons 302 and 304 may, for example, result in thesmart phone communicating corresponding signals to the applicationserver 140 that, in turn, communicates with the IVR 152 to cause the IVR152 to branch to multimodal action pages or to question pages as neededto receive the e-mail address via the keyboard input or through speech,respectively. Question voice pages and multimodal action pages aredescribed later in reference to FIGS. 5A-5N.

Additionally, the user also may select to have some or all of theinformation outputted to the user by the voice solution platform spokento the user, rather than displayed graphically on the interface of thesmart phone 110, by selecting the headphones output graphical button306. The user may select to mute the sound played by the smart phone 110by selecting the mute graphical button 308 and may select to pause anysound or speech provided by the smart phone 110 by selecting the pausebutton 310. Selection of the buttons 306 and 308 may, for example,result in the smart phone communicating corresponding signals to theapplication server 140 that, in turn, communicates with the IVR 152 tocause the IVR 152 to branch to multimodal action pages or to messagepages as needed to provide information to the user via speech or viatext (or image or video), respectively. Message voice pages andmultimodal action pages are described later in reference to FIGS. 5A-5N.

FIG. 3B shows an example of the keypad display 320 that may be presentedto the user for entry of the e-mail address upon the user selecting thekeypad graphical button 302. As shown in display 320, the keypadgraphical button 304 is highlighted, indicating that the user hasselected to type in the e-mail address rather than speak the e-mailaddress. Since e-mail addresses are almost impossible to accuratelycapture using an IVR, the multimodal application, in someimplementations, may disable the speak graphical button 302 or otherwisenot allow the user to speak the e-mail address. In theseimplementations, the user may automatically be presented with the keypadupon selecting to enter the e-mail address or, alternatively, may onlybe able to respond to the request by selecting the keypad graphicalbutton 304 and then entering the address via the keypad display 320.

FIG. 3C shows an example of a display 330 presented to the user on thesmart phone 110 after the user has selected to change his or her addressand is prompted to enter a four digit pin number for security purposes.As shown in the display 330, the speak graphical button 302 has beenhighlighted, indicating that the user has selected to speak the 4 digitpin into the phone, rather than type the 4 digit pin into the phoneusing the keypad.

FIG. 3D shows an example of a display 4640 presented to the user on thesmart phone 110 after the user has selected to change his or her pin andis prompted to enter a four digit pin number for security purposes. Asshown in the display 4640, the speak graphical button 302 has beenhighlighted, indicating that the user has selected to speak the 4 digitpin into the phone, rather than type the 4 digit pin into the phoneusing the keypad.

FIG. 3E shows an example of a display 350 presented to the user on thesmart phone 110 after the user has selected to change his or her addressand has successfully provided a pin through interacting with the voicesolution platform. As shown in the display 350, the speak graphicalbutton 302 has been highlighted, indicating that the user has selectedto speak his or her new address into the phone, rather than type his orher new address into the phone using the keypad.

FIG. 3F shows an example of a display 360 presented to the user on thesmart phone 110 that allows the user to pause or resume delivery of theWashington Gazette and select to be transferred to a billing departmentfor the Washington Gazette. In particular, the display 360 includes agraphical button 362 selectable to pause delivery of the WashingtonGazette, a graphical button 364 selectable to resume delivery of theWashington Gazette, and a graphical button 366 selectable to connect thesmart phone 110 to the billing department of the Washington Gazette. Asshown in the display 360, the user has selected the graphical button366, which is shown highlighted in the display 360, and the voicesolution platform is now connecting the smart phone 110 to the billingdepartment of the Washington Gazette. For example, the voice solutionplatform may connect the smart phone 110 to the billing department ofthe Washington Gazette by ending the voice communications sessionbetween the IVR 152 and the smart phone 110 and establishing a new voicecommunications session between the IVR 152 and a call center having oneor more agents that handle billing. The call center may be part of thecall handling system 150. The new voice communications with the callcenter may be established in parallel with the existing datacommunications session with the application server 140 such that thecommunications sessions overlap and allow sharing information betweenthe call center and the application server 140 via the shared memoryspace in a manner analogous to that described previously with respect tothe IVR 152 and the application server 140.

FIG. 4 illustrates an example of a communications system 400 thatenables multimodal interaction between a smart phone user and amultimodal interactive voice response (MM-IVR) system. Thecommunications system 400 is a particular implementation example of thecommunications system 100 described above with reference to FIG. 1.

The communications system 400 includes a content provider 405 thataccesses a call handling system 440 through a data network 410 tocreate/update a voice site belonging to the content provider 405 that ishosted by the call handling system 440. The call handling system 440 iscapable of hosting multiple voice sites that are created by multipledifferent content providers. In an alternative implementation, the callhandling system 440 may host only a single voice site for one contentprovider. The data network 410 is analogous to and is a particularexample of the data network 130 of communications system 100, while thecall handling system 440 is similar to and is a particular example ofthe call handling system 150 of communications system 100.

The communications system 400 includes a smartphone 415 that is used bya user to interact with the voice site of the content provider 405 usingan MM-IVR 470 that is included in the call handling system 440. The callhandling system 440 communicates with an application server 425component that is used for processing graphical and textual informationwith the smart phone 415. The MM-IVR 470 interacts with the applicationsserver 425 to support multimodal interaction between a smartphone and avoice site. The MM-IVR 470 or the application server 425, or acombination of the two, may be configured to support multimodalinteractions in multiple parallel communications sessions from multipledifferent users who call multiple different voice sites hosted by thecall handling system 440.

The communications between the smart phone 415 and the call handlingsystem is over the voice network 430, while the communications betweenthe smart phone and the application server 425 is over the data network410. The smart phone 415 is analogous to and is a particular example ofthe intelligent mobile telephone 110 of communications system 100. TheMM-IVR 470 is analogous to and is a particular example of the IVR system152 of communications system 100. The voice network 430 is analogous toand is a particular example of the telephone network 120 ofcommunications system 100. The communications system 400 also includes apush notification service 420 for interfacing between the smart phone415 and the application server 425.

The content provider 405 may be a company that is interested inproviding a call-based customer service to users of its product orservice. For example, the content provider 405 may be an Internetservice provider (ISP) interested in providing technical support to itscustomers using a voice site. Alternatively, the content provider 405may be a cable company or a satellite company that is interested inproviding technical support for its modems to its customers using avoice site.

The content provider 405 may utilize the services of a voice sitehosting service that provides the call handling system 440, to createand configure a voice site that is hosted on servers belonging to thevoice site hosting service. The voice site hosting service may provide acontent provider web interface 442 as part of the call handling system440 to enable the content provider to easily create and configure avoice site that will be accessed by customers for technical support.

The content provider web interface 442 is a web-based GUI front-end foran application development tool that can be used to build an enhancedvoice site that is capable of multimodal interaction with a caller. Thecontent provider 405 may access the content provider web interface 442over the data network 410 e.g., using a web browser that runs on acomputer with Internet connectivity used by the content provider. Thedata network 410 may be a publicly available network that is capable ofmultimedia data communications including images, text, video and voice,e.g. the Internet. In an alternative implementation, the data network410 may be a public network different from the Internet, or a privatenetwork, or a combination of public and private networks.

By accessing the application development tool using the content providerweb interface 442, the content provider 405 may create different typesof pages that will be used by the MM-IVR system 470 when processing acall to the voice site being created by the content provider 405. Thetypes of pages that may be created by the content provider 405 using theapplication development tool may include, for example: (1) a messagepage; (2) a question page; (3) a logic page; (4) a transaction page; and(5) a multimodal action page. In addition, the types of pages that maybe created by the content provider 405 using the application developmenttool may include, for example: an address capture page, a call queuepage, a call transfer page, a data page, a name capture page, a reversephone lookup page, a schedule page and a voicemail page. FIGS. 5A-5Nillustrate an example of an application development tool having acontent provider web interface 442, and a voice site that is createdusing the application development tool, with the voice site includingdifferent types of pages.

The pages created by the content provider 405 using the content providerweb interface 442 are interpreted and/or compiled by a content compiler444 included in the call handling system 440 to generate scripts thatare executed by the MM-IVR 470 as the MM-IVR 470 interacts with a callercalling the voice site created by the content provider 405. For example,the content compiler 444 may generate VoiceXML scripts for messagepages, question pages and logic pages that are created for the voicesite by the content provider 405. The VoiceXML scripts may be executedby the MM-IVR 470 as the MM-IVR 470 interacts over the voice network 430with a caller to the voice site.

The VoiceXML scripts generated by the content compiler 444 are stored ina data store 446 in the call handling system 440. The MM-IVR 470 mayaccess the scripts from the data store 446 and process them when theMM-IVR 470 interacts using voice interactions with a caller to the voicesite created by the content provider 405.

In addition to the VoiceXML scripts, the content compiler 444 may alsogenerate other types of scripts (e.g. Java scripts) and other types ofexecutable code using other programming languages based on transactionpages and multimodal action pages that may be created for the voice siteby the content provider 405. The other types of scripts may be used bythe application server 425 to interact over the data network 410 withthe caller to the voice site. In response to or based on instructionsreceived from the MM-IVR 470, the application server 425 may execute theother types of scripts (e.g. Java scripts) and generate appropriatemultimodal instructions that are communicated to the smart phone 415over the data network 410 (for multimodal action pages). Additionally oralternatively, the application server 425 may execute the other types ofscripts (e.g. Java scripts) and generate a transaction that processesdata, which may then be stored in a variable for subsequent access bythe MM-IVR 470 (for transaction pages). Execution of a part of thescripts (e.g., Java scripts) by the application server 425 may result ininformation being communicated back to the MM-IVR 470 indicating thatthe processing corresponding to the page (i.e., the multimodal actionpage or the transaction page) is completed. The application server 425also is configured to communicate with the call handling system 440(i.e., the MM-IVR 470 and/or the call center 480) to send form data andother data received from the smart phone 415 to the call handling system440.

The scripts used by the application server 425 are stored in a datastore 427 that is accessible by the application server. For example, thedata store 427 may be a high-capacity hard drive that is resident on thesame device hosting the application server 425, or the data store 427may be an array of high-capacity storage drives that are closely coupledto the application server 425. In an alternative implementation, thescripts used by the MM-IVR 470 and the scripts used by the applicationserver 425 are stored in a single data store, e.g., the data store 446that is located within the call handling system 440.

The smart phone 415 may be an intelligent telephonic device including adisplay or screen for providing visual information to the user of thesmart phone 415, a processor with sufficient processing power to executeinstructions sent by the application server 425 and sufficient memory tostore data including text, images, video and audio files. For example,the smart phone 415 may be an iPhone™ or an Android™-enabled smartphone. The display or screen of the smart phone 415 may be used todisplayed text, images, video or form data and the user of the smartphone 415 may interact with the display using a pointer mechanism toprovide input to single-field or multi-field forms. The smart phone 415includes one or more software programs called applications (alsoreferred to as clients) that are used to perform various functions. Thesmart phone 415 includes a native telephony application 416 that is usedby the user of the smart phone 415 to place a call by dialing a numberof the called party. For example, when the user of the smart phone 415wants to call the voice site created by the content provider 405, theuser may launch the native telephony application 416 by, for example,clicking on an icon on the display of the smartphone that represents thenative telephony application 416. The native telephony application 416,when launched, may provide the user with an alphanumeric keypad toenable the user to dial the number corresponding to the voice site. Thecall placed from the native telephony application 416 to the voice siteis communicated to the call handling system 440 over the voice network430. The voice network 430 may include a circuit-switched voice network,a packet-switched data network, or any other network able to carry voicedata. For example, circuit-switched voice networks may include a PublicSwitched Telephone Network (PSTN), and packet-switched data networks mayinclude networks based on the Internet protocol (IP) or asynchronoustransfer mode (ATM), and may support voice using, for example,Voice-over-IP, Voice-over-ATM, or other comparable protocols used forvoice data communications.

The smart phone 415 may also include a notification application orservice 417 that is used for generating pop-up notifications on thesmart phone display based on instructions and/or data received fromservers communicating with applications on the smart phone 415. Forexample, when the application server 425 communicates instructionsand/or data to the smart phone 415 as part of the multimodal interactionbetween the user and the voice site, the instructions and/or data maytrigger the notification application 417 to generate a pop-up on thesmart phone display asking the user permission to launch the multimodalapplication 418 that is configured to handle the instructions and/ordata communicated by the application server 425. In an alternativeimplementation, the notification application 417 may be used tointerface all instructions and data from servers communicating withapplications on the smart phone 415. All data communications to thesmart phone 415 may be received by the notification application 417 andthen transferred to the corresponding applications to which the datacommunications are directed.

The smart phone 415 also includes a multimodal application 418 that isused by the user to interact with the voice site in a multimodal manner.As described with respect to FIG. 1, the application is referred to asmultimodal in that it enables users to interact with the voice siteusing multiple different communications modes. For example, the user mayprovide information to the voice site by writing or speaking and mayreceive information from the voice site by hearing or reading.

The multimodal application 418 is a thin client capable of interactingwith the MM-IVR 470. In some implementations, the thin client is aconventional smart phone application that includes an add-on or plug-inthat provides multimodal functionality to a conventional smart-phoneapplication. The thin client and/or the add-on or plug-in may begenerated by the call handling system 440 when the content provider 405creates the voice site using the content provider web interface 442 andthe content compiler 444. The thin client and/or the add-on or plug-inmay be downloaded by the smart phone 415 from a server hosted by thecall handling system 440.

In one implementation, each voice site may have a dedicated multimodalapplication that is used exclusively to allow a user to interact withthe voice site. Therefore the smartphone 415 may have more than onemultimodal application installed on the smart phone 415, one for eachenhanced voice site that is accessed by the user of the smart phone 415.In another implementation, a single multimodal application may beconfigured to allow a user to interact with multiple voice sites. Inthis case, the smartphone 415 may have one multimodal applicationinstalled on the smart phone 415, and the content that is provided tothe user using the multimodal application may be different for differentvoice sites accessed by the user.

The user of the smart phone 415 may invoke the multimodal application418 stored in the smart phone 415 by selecting a graphically displayedicon on the display of the smart phone 415. When the multimodalapplication 418 is launched on the smart phone 415, a datacommunications session is established between the multimodal application418 and the application server 425. The interaction between the user andthe voice site occurs simultaneously using the data communicationssession for exchange of text, images and/or video between the multimodalapplication 418 and the application server 425, and using a voicecommunications session that is established between the native telephonyapplication 416 and the MM-IVR 470 for exchange of voice information. Asdescribed previously, FIGS. 3A-3F illustrate an example of a GUI for amultimodal application running on a smart phone that may be used forinteraction between the smart phone and an enhanced voice site. FIGS.6A-6D illustrate another example of a GUI for a multimodal applicationrunning on a smart phone that may be used for interaction between thesmart phone and another enhanced voice site.

The system 400 includes a push notification service 420 that interfacesbetween applications running on the smart phone 415 and applicationservers that interact with the applications running on the smart phone415. The push notification service may be provided by an entity that isindependent of either the content provider 405 or the voice site hostingservice that provides the call handling system 440. The pushnotification service 420 may be provided by the manufacturer of thesmart phone 415 e.g., the Orange push notification service where Orangeis the name of the manufacturer of the smart phone 415. Allcommunications from the application server 425 to the multimodalapplication 418 is sent to the push notification service 420 over thedata network 410. The push notification service 420 then “pushes” thecommunications to the smart phone 415, where the communications isreceived by the notification application 417 and/or the multimodalapplication 418. If a communication is received by the notificationapplication 417 and the multimodal application 418 is not running, thenotification application 417 may generate a pop-up notification that isdisplayed to the user on the display of the smart phone 415. The pop-upnotification may ask the user for permission to launch the multimodalapplication 418. If the user agrees, the user may select an affirmativebutton icon provided on the pop-up notification. This will send atrigger to the smart phone 415 logic to launch the multimodalapplication 418, without requiring the user to select a GUI icon for themultimodal application 418 on the display of the smart phone 415.

In an alternative implementation, the push notification service 420 maynot be present and all communications from the application server 425 tothe multimodal application 418 is sent directly to the smart phone 415over the data network.

The application server 425 may be a server computer with high processingcapabilities that is owned and operated by the voice site hostingservice providing the call handling system 440. Alternatively, theapplication server 425 may represent a host of server devices havinglower processing capabilities that are placed on racks that are tightlyintegrated with one another with various tasks being distributed betweenthe different servers depending on the load on the servers at the timeof the task distribution. The application server 425 may be co-locatedwith the call handling system 440 such that the MM-IVR 470 and theapplication server 425 are able to share the same resources, e.g.,memory and/or processor capacity. Alternatively, the application server425 may be located in a location that is different from the location ofthe call handling system 440, with a dedicated high-speed andhigh-bandwidth network connection coupling the application server 425 tothe call handling system 440.

In an alternative implementation, the application server 425 mayrepresent a server farm that is owned and operated by an independentprovider different from the content provider 405 or the voice sitehosting service providing the call handling system 440. For example, theapplication server 425 may be Amazon.com's Elastic Compute Cloud (AmazonEC2™) service that provides resizable compute capacity in the “cloud”(i.e., the Internet). The voice site hosting service providing the callhandling system 440 may lease computing capacity and/or storage on theapplication server 425 cloud for executing and storing scripts thatenable the multimodal interaction between the smart phone 415 and theenhanced voice site created by the content provider 405.

The call handling system 440 facilitates the creation and hosting ofvoice sites. The voice sites are both standard voice sites withoutmultimodal features and enhanced voice sites incorporating multimodalfeatures. The call handling system 440 utilizes various components toenable the creation and hosting of voice sites. The various componentsof the call handling system 440 may be co-located in a single physicallocation, or they may be geographically distributed, with dedicated highcapacity links interconnecting the various components.

The call handling system 440 includes a registration module 448 thathandles the registration of content provider 405 of different voicesites. The registration module 448 enables the content provider 405 tocontact the call handling system 440 and establish an account forbilling and personalization purposes. To pre-register, the contentprovider 405 may input name, address, contact information, paymentmechanism information, preferences, demographic information, language,etc. Other types of information requested during registration may beinput and stored as well. The call handling system 440 may assign thecontent provider 405 with a registration number that may be used toaccess pages for the voice site using the content provider web interface442. Further, the content provider 405 may personalize how services areto be billed, may input payment information for use in transactionprocessing, and may select personalization features for delivery ofvoice content, including specification of information for use by voicepersonalization module 462. In one implementation, the registrationmodule 448 may provide a web subscription interface to enable potentialsubscribers to connect over the World Wide Web in order to sign up forthe voice site hosting services.

The call handling system 440 includes a call reception module 450 forreceiving calls from users who are calling various voice sites hosted bythe call handling system 440. For example, when the user of the smartphone 415 calls the voice site created by the content provider 405, thecall is received at the call reception module 450. The call receptionmodule 450 also delivers voice content to the smart phone 415. The callhandling system 440 may be configured such that a call to a voice sitehosted by the call handling system 440 is received at the call reception450, i.e., the call reception 450 may act as a proxy for the callingnumbers of all the voice sites hosted by the call handling system 440.

The call handling system 440 includes a page execution module 464 forexecuting the contents of pages corresponding to the voice site that iscalled. Execution of the content may include playing the content,scanning the page for certain tags or markers to include other pageinformation, generate call menus and other tasks. Page execution module464 may coordinate with a page menu module 466 that is provided withinthe call handling system 440. Page menu module 466 presents, receivesand interprets menu options presented in a page. Page menu module 466may comprise a VoiceXML interpretation module that utilizes VoiceXML orother voice-based XML file formats as the pages to understand the menusthat are to be presented to the user to enable the user to maneuverwithin the MM-IVR 470. Page menu module 466 may also comprise a VoiceXMLinterpretation module, a Nuance Grammar or Speech Works specificationlanguage module or a Java Speech grammar format module. Page menu module466 may interpret predefined menu options and determine which of theoptions to execute based on choices selected by the user from a choiceinterpretation module 458, as described below.

The call handling system 440 also includes a multimedia generator module460 for outputting voice signals to the smart phone 415 over the voicecommunications session, and for outputting text, images and video to thesmart phone 415 over the data communications session using theapplication server 425. The multimedia generator module 460 may playvoice files, may comprise a text-to-voice conversion module for“reading” text files as voice output or any other type of module fortaking a data file and generating voice output to be directed by thecall reception 450 to the user of the smart phone 415.

A voice personalization module 462 may be provided optionally thatenables the user of the smart phone 415 to select personalized featuresfor the voice content of the voice site created by the content provider405. Personalization features may include tone, pitch, language, speed,gender, volume, accent, and other voice options that a user may desireto make the information more understandable or desirable. Voicepersonalization module 462 modifies how multimedia generator module 460generates voice content to correspond to the smart phone 415 user'sdesired choices. The voice personalization features may be set by theuser of the smart phone 415 upon subscribing and automatically appliedwhen that user logs into the system. Personalization module 462retrieves information from subscriber database once the user isconnected to the voice site and has provided hisregistration/subscription. In doing so, the user does not need tospecify additional information at any point during the session. If theuser is filling out a form or running a transaction, his pre-fetchedinformation is placed where necessary. Personalization module 462 alsomay present the user with a portal page, allowing the user quick accessto the content they frequently access. If the pages store user specificinformation, then personalization module 462 may retrieve thatinformation. Personalization module 462 may also allow users to modifyspeech output settings as described above.

Some of the multimedia (e.g., text, images to video to display to theuser of the smart phone 415) that is used by the voice site is generatedby the application server 425. The page execution module 464 executes aVoiceXML script that is retrieved from the data store 446 using the pageretrieval module 468 and based on the execution of the VoiceXML script,the page execution module 464 sends a communication to the applicationserver 425 to instruct the application server 425 to (1) execute its ownscript (e.g., Java script) to generate an appropriate multimodalinstruction and communicate the multimodal instruction to the smartphone 415 over the data network 410 (for a multimodal action page); or(2) execute its own script (e.g., Java script) to execute a transactionthat processes data, which may then be stored in a variable forsubsequent access by the MM-IVR 470 (for a transaction page). Executionof part of the scripts (e.g., Java scripts) by the application server425 may result in communication of a signal back to the page executionmodule 464 indicating that the processing corresponding to the page(i.e., the multimodal action page or the transaction page) is done. Thepage execution module 464 may then commence the processing of the nextpage. In another implementation, the page execution module 464immediately or at a predetermined time later automatically beginsprocessing the next page without waiting to receive a communication fromthe application server 425 that the execution of the multimodal actionpage or the transaction page is completed.

The call handling system 440 also may include a choice interpretationmodule 458 that may be used to interpret responses from the user of thesmart phone 415, such as those based on menu options. Choiceinterpretation module 458 cooperates with page menu module 466 and callreception 450 to enable call handling system 440 to respond to userrequests based on menu options presented within a page. For example, ifthe menu provided by the page includes five options, choiceinterpretation module 458 may determine which of the five options toexecute based on the input received through call reception 450 from theuser. If the user presses the number 1 on the smart phone 415, thenchoice interpretation module 458 generates a signal that indicates topage menu module 466 to execute choice 1. Choice interpretation module458 may comprise a more complicated system as well. Various call menutechnologies generally are known and can be used. The user may also beable to respond with voice-based choices. Choice interpretation module458 then uses voice-to-text conversion, natural language interpretationand/or artificial intelligence to determine which of the available menuoptions the user desires. Other systems for interpreting and executinguser menu choices may also be used for choice interpretation module 458.

The call handling system 440 additionally may include a transactionprocessing module 456 for processing transactions presented in a page.Transactions may include purchase of goods, request for services, makingor changing reservations, requesting information, and any other type oftransaction that may be performed by the smart phone 415 or otherinformation exchange system. The transaction processing module 456 maybe used to process transactions that occur based on voice informationreceived by the call reception 450 from the user of smart phone 415.Other types of transactions that include text, images or videoinformation, are processed using the application server 425, asdescribed previously.

The call handling system 440 also may include a billing module 454 formonitoring the smart phone 415 user's access to various pages andenabling the call handling system 440 to allocate fees received from theuser to content providers, transaction processors, and others. Billingmodule 454 may be used to record the time the user logs into the voicesite, to record times when users access new pages, to record when usersperform transactions, and other types of information that may be usedfor determining how to allocate fees received from the user foraccessing the voice site.

Billing module 454 may compute time spent and pages accessed on thevoice site for each page. In one implementation, the billing module 454receives a credit value for the page as specified by the contentprovider and calculates the charges on a minute-basis throughout thecall session. This information may be stored in a user statisticsdatabase and/or the data store 446 and/or the data store 427. For eachcall, billing module 454 may track time of day/day of week, callduration, call origin, pages visited, etc. For each page, it may track“hit” frequency, revenue generated, demographics, etc. It may also trackthe advertisements presented, transactions performed, and otherinformation.

In some implementations, the call handling system 440 may optionallyinclude a call center 480. The call center 480 is analogous to and is aparticular example of the call center 154 of communications system 100.The call center 480 of the call handling system 440 may include, amongother components, an inbound call queue, an outbound call request queue,a call router, an automatic call distributor (“ACD”) administrator, anda plurality of call center agents. The call center 480 may receive oneor more calls from one or more telephonic devices, such as the smartphone 415, that are routed to the call center by the MM-IVR 470, forexample, through the execution of scripts corresponding to a calltransfer page. In addition, the call center 480 may make one or moreoutbound calls to telephonic devices via the voice network 430. The callcenter 480 may determine an appropriate call center agent to route thecall to or to assign an outbound call to. The determination of anappropriate agent may be based on agent performance metrics andinformation known about the inbound or outbound call. The determinationof the appropriate agent may, for example, be based on some or all ofthe form information and/or other optional information received from thesmart phone 415.

FIGS. 5A-5N illustrate a GUI 500 for an application development toolthat is used by a content provider to create a multimodal voice site.The GUI 500 may be implemented by the content provider web interface 442and presented to the content provider 405 when the content provider 405accesses the call handling system 440 using a web browser over the datanetwork 410 to create/manage the voice site. The following describes thedifferent components of the GUI 500 with respect to the system 400 thatis described with reference to FIG. 4. Specifically, the components ofthe GUI 500 are described as used by the content provider 405 to createa voice site for providing technical support to users of a product(e.g., a wireless cable modem) associated with the content provider 405.However, the GUI 500 and the associated application development tool maybe used by other systems, content providers or application developers,among others.

FIG. 5A illustrates a multimodal setup page 505 that is presented to thecontent provider 405 when the content provider 405 logs into the callhandling system 440 to create the voice site. The phone numberassociated with the voice site that will be called by the user isspecified by the phone number 505 a. In one implementation, the voicesite may have multiple phone numbers 505 a associated with the voicesite. The multimodal setup page 505 may be used to identify the images,text files, and video files that are required for the multimodalinteraction defined by the voice site. The images, text files, and videofiles are specified by the content provider 405 using the file names 505b. To select an image file, the content provider 405 clicks on the “LinkImage” link that opens a pop-up window displaying a list of images thatare uploaded by the content provider 405. To select a video file, thecontent provider 405 clicks on the “Link Video” link that opens a pop-upwindow displaying a list of video files that are uploaded by the contentprovider 405. To select a text file, the content provider 405 clicks onthe “Link Text” link that opens a pop-up window displaying a list oftext files that are uploaded by the content provider 405. The contentprovider 405 can clear the file selection that it has previously made byclicking on the “Clear” link. The content provider 405 can view the fileselection that it has made by clicking on the “View” link. A previouslyselected file can be deleted by checking the radio button to the left ofthe file, and then clicking the “Delete” button icon. A new file can beadded by clicking the “Add File” button icon. An added file can berearranged by checking the radio button to the left of the file and thenclicking the “Up” button icon to move the file up in the order, or the“Down” button icon to move the file down in the order.

When the user of smart phone 415 calls the voice site and launches themultimodal application 418 on the smart phone 415 to interact with thevoice site, the MM-IVR 470 executes a script based on the informationincluded in the multimodal setup page 505 and instructs the applicationserver 425 to send a signal to the smart phone 415 that provides anindication of all the files that are necessary for the multimodalapplication 418 to interact with the voice site. The files that arenecessary may be, for example, the files that are specified by thecontent provider 405 on the multimodal setup page 505. Upon receivingthe signal from the MM-IVR 470/application server 425, the multimodalapplication 418 checks in the local memory of the smart phone 415 to seewhether the necessary files as indicated by the signal from the MM-IVR470, are present on the smart phone 470. If the multimodal application418 determines that one or more of the necessary files are not present,then the multimodal application 418 sends a message to the applicationserver 425 including information on the necessary files that are notlocally present on the smart phone 415. Upon receiving the message fromthe multimodal application 418 with the information on the files thatare not present locally on the smart phone 415, the application server425 pushes the missing files to the smart phone 415. The order in whichthe files are downloaded may be, for example, from top to bottom asspecified on the site multimodal setup page 505. Therefore, the top tobottom order may match the order in which the files will be used by thevoice site during the multimodal interaction.

The variable 505 c that is used to store the caller id that is requiredto identify the smart phone 415 from which the call is made also may bestored on the site multimodal setup page 505. The variable 505 c may beselected from a list of variables previously specified by the contentprovider by clicking on the “Select a Variable” drop-down menu button.

FIG. 5B illustrates a Site Overview page 510 that provides a listing ofthe different pages created by the content provider 405 to define thevoice site. The Site Overview page 510 lists all the pages that areincluded in the voice site. The name of the voice site is specified inthe heading 510 a of the Site Overview page 510, e.g., “Cable WirelessInc. Modem Troubleshooting IVR.” When the user of smart phone 415interacts with the voice site, the first page that is processed isdetermined by the ‘Home Page’ field 510 b. The content provider 405 mayspecify any page that the content provider wants to be processed firstas the Home Page 510 b. In some implementations, the first page in thelisting of pages is the same page that is listed as the ‘Home Page’ 510b. However, in other implementations, the page that is as the ‘HomePage’ 510 b is not the first page in the listing of the pages in theSite Overview page 510. The order in which the various pages areprocessed is determined by the links in the respective pages. Each pageusually contains a link to the next page that is to be processed. Asdescribed previously, each page created by the content provider 405 hasa type that may be one of the following: (1) message page; (2) questionpage; (3) logic page; (4) transaction page; and (5) multimodal actionpage. The type of each page is specified by an icon associated with thatparticular type in the Type field 510 c in the ordered listing of thepages. A voice site may have multiple pages of the same type. Forexample, the voice site illustrated in the Site Overview page 510 hasfour pages of type message page, including the pages “Say Greeting”,“Ask for Email Address”, “Instruction” and “Goodbye.” Each of the pagesmay be identified by a page name that is shown in the Page Name field510 d. In addition or as an alternative to the page name, each page alsomay be identified by a page number that is shown in the Page # filed 510e. The page name and page number of a page are specified by the contentprovider 405 when creating the pages for the voice site. A page may havea unique page name, or it may have a page name that is similar to thepage name of another page. In case two or more pages share the same pagename, they may be differentiated based on the page numbers. Thecombination of page name and page number uniquely identifies a page. Thecontent provider 405 may create a new page by clicking the “Add VoicePage” drop-down menu button icon 510 f. When the “Add Voice Page”drop-down menu button icon 510 f is selected, a drop-down menu listingthe available types of pages are displayed to enable the contentprovider to select the type of page it wants to add. Alternatively, anew page may be created by copying a previously created page. Thecontent provider 405 may select the page to be copied by checking theradio button to the left of the page to be copied and then selecting the“Copy” button. An existing page can be deleted by checking the radiobutton to the left of the page, and then clicking the “Delete” buttonicon.

FIG. 5C illustrates a message page 515 that is the first page that isprocessed for the voice site illustrated by the Site Overview page 510.The voice page 515 is identified by its page name 515 a and/or pagenumber 515 b. The page name 515 a and the page number 515 b correspondsto the name of the page shown in the Page Name field 510 d and thenumber of the page shown in the Page # field 510 e respectively, shownin the Site Overview page 510. The type of the page is represented bythe icon 515 h, which indicates that page 515 is a message page. Thetype of the page 515 corresponds to the type of the page shown in theType field 510 c in the Site Overview page 510, which is indicated by asimilar icon.

The commands that are to be processed by the MM-IVR system 470 when thepage 515 is executed are shown in the body of the page 515 under theheading “Site Commands.” “Site Commands” refer to actions that the usermay perform (e.g., by saying the command on the phone or pressing abutton on the dial pad of the native telephony application 416, or bypressing a button displayed by the multimodal application 418 on thedisplay of the smart phone 415) to come to that particular page in thevoice site. The site commands may be available on all the pages, or on asubset of the pages included in the voice site.

Since page 515 is a message page, when the page 515 is executed, theMM-IVR system 470 prompts the user with a voice message that isspecified using the “Initial Prompts” field 515 c. The content provider405 may define the voice message by typing in text in the text inputfield 515 d. When the page 515 is executed, the MM-IVR system 470prompts the user with a voice message corresponding to the text that isentered by the content provider 405. For example, the user of the smartphone 415 may hear the voice site say, “Hi. Welcome to Cable WirelessInc.'s modem troubleshooting hotline.”

The above example is a text-to-speech type of prompt. A text-to-speechtype of prompt with a text input field is presented by default when amessage page is created. The content provider 405 may delete the defaulttext-to-speech type prompt and create a different type of prompt. Thedefault text-to-speech type prompt may be deleted by checking the radiobutton next to the text input field and then selecting the “Delete”button. Alternatively, the content provider 405 may specify one or moreother prompts in the message page 515. Prompts may be added by thecontent provider 405 by selecting a button icon corresponding to thetype of prompt to be added, specified to the right of the Add Prompt 515e. The two other types of prompts are audio and variable. When thecontent provider 405 selects to add an audio prompt, the contentprovider 405 is able to specify a pre-recorded audio file that is storedin the call handling system 440, for example in the data store 446. Whenthe page 515 is executed, the MM-IVR system 470 locates and plays theaudio file specified by the audio prompt using its in-built audio playersuch that the user of the smart phone 415 hears the recording associatedwith the audio file. When the content provider 405 selects to add avariable prompt, the content provider 405 is able to specify apre-determined variable that is specified by the content provider 405for the voice site. When the page 515 is executed, the MM-IVR system 470locates the variable specified by the variable prompt and plays the dataassociated with the variable to the user of the smart phone 415 usingtext-to-speech conversion. For example, if the content provider selectsa variable that has the number 5 associated with it, the MM-IVR 470 willplay audio information to the user using the native telephonyapplication 416 that the user will hear as saying “Five.”

In addition to the prompts, the content provider 405 may specify actioncommands 515 f on the message page 515. The actions that are possibleare specified by the drop-down menu list corresponding to the actions515 f. For example, the content provider may select the action “Go toDesignated Page” and specify the page 515 g that is executed in thesequence after the current page. Once the message page 515 is createdand/or updated, the content provider 405 saves the message page 515 byselecting the “Save” button. The message page 515 is subsequently storedby the call handling system 440, for example, in the data store 446.Alternatively, the content provider 405 may elect to discard theadditions/changes that have been made by selecting the “Cancel” button,in which case the additions/changes are not saved by the call handlingsystem 440.

FIG. 5D illustrates a multimodal action page 520 that is processed bythe MM-IVR 470 for the voice site based on the action 515 f specified bythe preceding page (i.e., message page 515). Similar to the voice page515, the multimodal action page 520 is identified by its Page Name 520 aand/or Page #520 b. The Page Name 520 a and the Page #520 b correspondsto the name of the page shown in the Page Name field 510 d and thenumber of the page shown in the Page # field 510 e respectively, shownin the Site Overview page 510. The type of the page is represented bythe icon 520 c, which indicates that page 520 is a multimodal actionpage. The type of the page 520 corresponds to the type of the page shownin the Type field 510 c in the Site Overview page 510, which isindicated by a similar icon.

The multimodal action page is a page type that enables multimodalinteraction when included in a voice site. The type of multimodalinteraction is controlled by the Action dropdown menu 520 d. In oneexample implementation, three broad categories of multimodal interactionare offered through selection of corresponding options in the dropdownmenu 520 d:

-   -   1. pushing content to the phone (action parameter in the action        instruction sent to the smart phone is one of ‘PushImage’,        ‘PushVideo’, ‘PushText’);    -   2. show the keyboard of the phone (action parameter is        ‘ShowKeyboard’); and    -   3. getting content from phone (action parameter in the action        instruction sent to the smart phone is one of ‘GetImage’,        ‘GetVideo’, ‘GetText’).

As described previously, the multimodal action page 520 is executed bythe application server 425. When the MM-IVR 470 processes the multimodalaction page 520, it sends an instruction to the application server 425to execute the multimodal action page 520. The commands that areprocessed by the application server 425 when the page 520 is executedare shown in the body of the page 520 under the heading “Site Commands.”Based on the action 520 d defined in the page 520 by the contentprovider 405, when the application server 425 executes a scriptcorresponding to page 520, it generates an appropriate multimodalinstruction that includes an action parameter and, optionally, a valueparameter and communicates the multimodal instruction to the smart phone415 over the data communications session. The action 520 d specified onthe multimodal action page 520 is “Show Keyboard” and corresponds, forexample, to the action parameter “ShowKeyboard.” Therefore themultimodal instruction communicated to the smart phone 415 instructs themultimodal application 418 to show the keyboard. Accordingly, themultimodal application 418 displays a keyboard to the user on thedisplay of the smart phone 415 along with a text input field to entertext using the displayed keyboard.

After sending the instruction to the application server 425, the MM-IVR470 processes the next action 520 e specified in the multimodal actionpage 520, which instructs the MM-IVR 470 to go to the page numbered 2000and with page name “Ask for Email Address.” Once the multimodal actionpage 520 is created and/or updated, the content provider 405 saves themultimodal action page 520 by selecting the “Save” button. Themultimodal action page 520 is subsequently stored by the call handlingsystem 440, for example, in the data store 446 and/or the data store427. Alternatively, the content provider 405 may elect to discard theadditions/changes that have been made by selecting the “Cancel” button,in which case the additions/changes are not saved by the call handlingsystem 440.

FIG. 5E illustrates a message page 525 that is executed by the MM-IVR470 for the voice site based on the action 520 e specified by thepreceding page (i.e., the multimodal action page 520). The page name,page number and prompts fields of the message page 525 are similar tothe message page 515, but the content are different. In the exampleshown, the message page 525 is used by the content provider 405 to askthe user accessing the voice site to provide the user's email address.Therefore the text that is entered by the content provider 405 in thetext input field 525 b corresponding to the prompt 525 a, when audiblypresented to the user using text-to-speech conversion by the MM-IVR 470,asks the user, “Please enter your email address using the keyboard onyour phone. Say ‘continue’ when you are done.” The message is played tothe user using the native telephony application 416 on the smart phone415, while the multimodal application 418 displays a keyboard and textinput field on the display of the smart phone 415. In an alternativeimplementation, the message is played to the user using the multimodalapplication 418, while the multimodal application 418 simultaneouslydisplays a keyboard and text input field on the display of the smartphone 415.

In addition to the prompt, the content provider 405 specifies a “Listenfor Page Commands” action command 525 c on the message page 525. The“Listen for Page Commands” action command instructs the MM-IVR 470 toreceive page commands from the user of the smart phone 415 and processthe received page command based on the definition of the page commandsthat are specified on the voice page 525. The content provider 405 mayspecify one, five or ten page commands by selecting one of the threebuttons associated with the “Add Page Commands” 525 g. The page commandspecified by the content provider 405 on the message page 525 instructsthe MM-IVR 470 to wait for the user to either say “continue” 525 d onthe speaker of the smart phone 415 or press “1” 525 e on the dial pad ofthe smart phone 415, and then process the page numbered 2100 and withpage name “Retrieve Email Address From Phone” 525 f. When the MM-IVR 470receives a transmission from the smart phone 415 that is processed asindicating that the user has said “continue” 525 d on the speaker of thesmart phone 415 and/or pressed “1” 525 e on the dial pad of the smartphone 415, the MM-IVR 470 retrieves and processes the page 2100, whichis shown in FIG. 5F.

FIG. 5F illustrates a multimodal action page 530 that is processed bythe MM-IVR 470 for the voice site based on the action 525 f specified bythe preceding page (i.e., message page 525). Similar to the previouslydescribed pages 505-525, the multimodal action page 530 is identified byits page name and/or Page #. The type of the page is represented by theaction icon that is similar to the icon 520 c of multimodal action page520.

The multimodal action page 530 is executed by the application server425. When the MM-IVR 470 processes the multimodal action page 530, itsends an instruction to the application server 425 to execute themultimodal action page 530. The action 530 a specified on the multimodalaction page 530 is “GetText”. Therefore the multimodal instructiongenerated by the application server 425 and communicated to the smartphone 415 over the data communications session may include, for example,the action parameter “GetText” and may instruct the multimodalapplication 418 to send to the application server a text string that isentered by the user of the smart phone 415. The text string is enteredby the user of the smart phone by typing using the keyboard in the textinput field that are displayed to the user by the multimodal application418 on the display of the smart phone 415 based on the instructionsassociated with the multimodal action page 520. The multimodalapplication 418 captures the text string entered by the user andcommunicates the text string to the application server over the datacommunications session. The text string is saved by the applicationserver in the variable identified by “Variable To Store Text” 530 b. Forexample, the text string may be saved in the variable “user_email” thatwas previously defined by the content provider 405. In the example shownin FIG. 5F, the text string saved in the variable “user_email”corresponds to an email address of the user of the smart phone 415. Theemail address may be used by the call handling system to identify andlocate a subscription account for associated with the user for the voicesite created by content provider 405.

After sending the instruction to the application server 425, the MM-IVR470 processes the next action 530 c specified in the multimodal actionpage 530, which instructs the MM-IVR 470 to process the page numbered2500 and with page name “Obtain Cable Modem Type.”

FIG. 5G illustrates a transaction page 535 that is processed by theMM-IVR 470 for the voice site based on the action 530 c specified by thepreceding page (i.e., multimodal action page 530). The type of the page535 is identified by the icon 535 a, which indicates that page 535 is atransaction type page. As described previously, transaction pages may beexecuted by the application server 425. In some implementations,transaction pages are additionally or alternatively executed by thetransaction processing module 456. When the MM-IVR 470 processes thetransaction page 535 and the transaction page is processed by theapplication server 425, the MM-IVR 470 sends an instruction to theapplication server 425 to execute the transaction page 535.

Based on the information contained in the transaction page 535, theapplication server 425 invokes a script to perform certain actions thatare defined in the script. The name and location of the script arespecified by the URL 535 b. The URL 535 b may specify a World Wide Web(WWW) address indicating that the script is accessible over theInternet. Alternatively, the URL 535 b may be the address of a localfile. The hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) commands POST or GET 535 care selected by the content provider 405 to indicate whether the scriptspecified by the URL 535 b will return a value to the application server425. When the application server 425 invokes the script specified by theURL 535 b, the application server 425 may pass one or more parameters tothe script as input parameters that are needed for execution of thescript. The input parameters are specified by the content provider 405under the “Parameters” heading in the page 535. The content provider 405may specify a variable or a constant parameter by selecting the “AddParameter” 535 d. In the example shown in FIG. 5G, the parameterspecified by the content provider 405 is a variable with the name“user_email” 535 e specified under “Parameter Name”, with the value ofthe variable being represented by the string “user_email” specifiedunder “Parameter Value.” The variable “user_email” corresponds to thevariable that was obtained by the application server 425 from themultimodal application 418 by executing a script corresponding tomultimodal action page 530.

The script specified by the URL 535 b performs certain actions using thevariable “user_email” and returns a value to the application server 425.The response received from the script specified by the URL 535 b isinterpreted by the application server based on the instructionsspecified by the content provider in 535 f. The response may beinterpreted as a VoiceXML script (e.g., “AngelXML” script, which is aversion of a VoiceXML script). The VoiceXML script also may specify thenext page (e.g., Page #3000 as illustrated by FIG. 5H) that is to beexecuted in the execution order of the pages of the voice site. In analternative implementation, the response may be interpreted, forexample, as text-to-speech.

In the example illustrated by FIG. 5G, the script specified by the URL535 b identifies the subscriber account corresponding to the user of thesmart phone 415 for the product/service that is provided by the voicesite, which is a wireless cable modem product. The script uses the emailaddress provided by the user, which is stored in the “user_email”variable, to identify the subscriber account. Based on identifying thesubscriber account, the script retrieves information related to theparticular model of cable modem that is used by the user of the smartphone 415, and returns a value to the application server 425 indicatingthe particular model of the cable modem. The returned value is used bythe application server 425 to populate a variable “modem_type”, as shownwith respect to FIG. 5H.

FIG. 5H illustrates a logic page 540 that is processed by the MM-IVR 470for the voice site based on the response 535 f that is received from thescript executed by the application server 425 based on instructionsspecified by transaction page 535. The type of the page 540 isidentified by the icon 540 a, which indicates that page 540 is a logicpage. The logic page 540 is executed by the MM-IVR 470.

The MM-IVR 470 executes a script corresponding to the operation rulesthat are specified in the logic page 540. The logic page 540 specifies alogic statement that is based on the value of the variable “modem_type”540 b. The variable modem_type is populated by the value that isreturned by the script executed by the application server 425 that isspecified by the URL 535 b in the transaction page 535. The “If”statement 530 c is a condition logic block that tests the value of thevariable “modem_type” and if the value equals “D_Link_DSL”, then theMM-IVR 470 executes the block 540 d and branches to the page numbered4000 with page name “Push Image of D_Link_DSL_Modem.” On the other hand,if the value of the variable “modem_type” does not equal “D_Link_DSL”,then the MM-IVR 470 executes the block 540 e and branches to the pagenumbered 5000 with page name “Push Image of D_Link_DCM_Modem.”

The content provider 405 may specify one or more operation rules orlogic commands in the logic page 540 by selecting one of the threebuttons “Condition”, “Assignment” and “Transformation” 540 f. The “If”statement 540 c described above is an example of a “Condition” logicoperation. An “Assignment” logic operation is one in which a value getsassigned to a variable. A “Transformation” logic operation is one inwhich a variable gets transformed from one value to another, e.g., whenthe value of a variable is updated based on the value of anothervariable.

FIG. 5I illustrates a multimodal action page 545 that is processed bythe MM-IVR 470 for the voice site based on the execution of the “If”logic condition 540 c specified in the logic page 540. The MM-IVR 470processes the multimodal action page 545 if the test of the “If”condition 540 c results in the execution of the conditional block 540 d.Similar to other multimodal action pages, the multimodal action page 545is executed by the application server 425. When the MM-IVR 470 processesthe multimodal action page 545, it sends an instruction to theapplication server 425 to execute the multimodal action page 545. Theaction 545 a specified on the multimodal action page 545 is “PushImage.”The image that is to be pushed is specified by the “Value” field 545 b.Therefore the multimodal instruction generated by the application server425 and communicated to the smart phone 415 over the data communicationssession may include the action parameter “PushImage” and the valueparameter “D_Link_DSL_Modem.png,” which identifies the image to bedisplayed (i.e., pushed) to the user. The multimodal instructioninstructs the multimodal application 418 to display the image specifiedby 545 b to the user on the display of the smart phone 415. Using theexample of page 545, the multimodal application 418 would display theimage “D_Link_DSL_Modem.png” on the display of the smart phone 415. Toassociate an image to the “Value” field 545 b, the content provider 405would click on the “Link Image” link that brings up the ‘Image LinkPanel’ pop-up window that is described with respect to FIG. 5L below.‘PushText’ and ‘PushVideo’ actions work in a manner similar to the‘PushImage’ action to display text files and video files respectively onthe display of the smart phone 415 using the multimodal application 418.They also have associated ‘Text Link Panel’ and ‘Video Link Panel’ pagesrespectively.

After sending the instruction to the application server 425, the MM-IVR470 processes the next action 545 c specified in the multimodal actionpage 545, which instructs the MM-IVR 470 to process the page numbered8000 and with page name “Instruction.”

FIG. 5J illustrates a message page 550 that is executed by the MM-IVR470 for the voice site based on the action 545 c specified by thepreceding page (i.e., the multimodal action page 545). The page name,page number and prompts fields of the message page 550 are similar tothe message page 525, but the content are different. In the exampleshown, the message page 550 is used by the content provider 405 toinstruct the user unplug the cable modem as shown by the image specifiedin the image file “D_Link_DSL_Modem.png” that is pushed to the user bythe application server 425 based on instructions specified in themultimodal action page 545.

Therefore the text that is entered by the content provider 405 in thetext input field 550 b corresponding to the prompt 550 a, when audiblypresented to the user using text-to-speech conversion by the MM-IVR 470,asks the user, “Go ahead and unplug the modem, as shown in the image,wait 10 seconds, then plug it back in. When you've done that, say, I'mdone.” The message is played to the user using the native telephonyapplication 416 on the smart phone 415, while the multimodal application418 displays the image specified in the image file“D_Link_DSL_Modem.png” on the display of the smart phone 415. In analternative implementation, the message is played to the user using themultimodal application 418, while the multimodal application 418simultaneously displays the image specified in the image file“D_Link_DSL_Modem.png” on the display of the smart phone 415.

In addition to the prompt, the content provider 405 specifies a “Listenfor Site & Page Commands” action command 550 c on the message page 550.The “Listen for Site & Page Commands” action command instructs theMM-IVR 470 to receive page commands from the user of the smart phone 415and process the received page commands based on the definition of thepage commands that are specified on the voice page 550. The page commandspecified by the content provider 405 on the message page 550 instructsthe MM-IVR 470 to wait for the user to either say “I am done” or “I'mdone” 550 d on the speaker of the smart phone 415 or press “1” 550 e onthe dial pad of the smart phone 415, and then process the page numbered10000 and with page name “Goodbye” 550 f. When the MM-IVR 470 receives atransmission from the smart phone 415 that is processed as indicatingthat the user has said either say “I am done” or “I'm done” 550 d on thespeaker of the smart phone 415 and/or pressed “1” 550 e on the dial padof the smart phone 415, the MM-IVR 470 retrieves and processes the page10000, which is shown in FIG. 5K.

FIG. 5K illustrates a message page 555 that is the last page that isprocessed for the voice site illustrated by the Site Overview page 510.The message page 550 is executed by the MM-IVR 470 for the voice sitebased on the action 550 f specified by the preceding page (i.e., themessage page 550). The user arrives at the page 555 after the user hasnavigated through the entire voice site created by the content provider405 and that is illustrated by the FIGS. 5A-5K. The content provider 405may define the voice message by typing in text in the text input field555 d. When the page 555 is executed, the MM-IVR system 470 prompts theuser with a voice message corresponding to the text 555 b that isentered by the content provider 405. For example, the user of the smartphone 415 may hear the voice site say, “Alright. Thanks for using CableWireless Inc.'s Modem Troubleshooting Hotline. Goodbye!”

In addition to the prompt 555 a, the content provider 405 specifies theaction 555 c on the message page 555. The content provider may selectthe action “End the Call.” Therefore when the MM-IVR 470 executes ascript corresponding to the page 555, the MM-IVR 470 terminates the callthat is placed by the user of the smart phone 415 when the action 555 cis executed. When the call is terminated, the MM-IVR 470 terminates thevoice communications session that was established with the smart phone415. In addition, the MM-IVR 470 sends an instruction to the applicationserver 425 based on which the application server 425 terminates the datacommunications session that was established with the multimodalapplication 418.

FIG. 5L illustrates an Image Link Panel page 560 that may be used by thecontent provider 405 during the creation of the voice site. The ImageLink Panel page 560 is used when the content provider creates themultimodal action page 545 with the action “PushImage.” The contentprovider 405 invokes the Image Link Panel page 560 by clicking on the“Link Image” link in page 545 that launches the Image Link Panel page560 in an overlay window that is displayed on top of page 545. Using theImage Link Panel page 560 the content provider 405 is able to link animage to the multimodal action page 545. This Image Link Panel page 560can also be used to upload images or a collection of images as acompressed archive file (e.g., a ZIP file) using the “Upload Image”option 560 a. All images are stored under a ‘/images/’ top level folderthat is shown by the “Current Folder” field 560 b. Under this folder,the content provider 405 can create additional folders using the “AddFolder” option 560 c. The images and folders that have been added areshown on the right side of the page 560 as a listing of icons and imagenames 560 d.

FIG. 5M illustrates an Image Manager page 565 that is accessible to thecontent provider 405 from the “Home” tab of the account belonging to thecontent provider 405. The Image Manager page 565 is used to manage allimage files that are uploaded by the content provider 405. There aresimilar Audio Manger page that is used to manage audio files, a TextManager page that is used to manage text files and a Video Manager pagethat is used to manage video files.

FIG. 5N illustrates a question page 570 that is used in the creation ofa voice site when the MM-IVR 470 asks a question of the caller callingthe voice site. The question that is asked is specified by the voicesite creator using the ‘Initial Prompts’ option. The response receivedfrom the caller is processed based on the “Response Type” 570 aspecified by the site creator and is stored in a variable 570 b. Thequestion page 570 also may allow the caller to provide responsesincluding multiple keywords—this is enabled by selecting the radiobutton associated with the “Allow Multiple Choice” option 570 c.

FIGS. 6A-6D illustrate a GUI 600 for another example of a multimodalapplication on a smart phone. The GUI 600 may be associated with themultimodal application 418 for the voice site created by the contentprovider 405 using the content provider web interface 442. For example,the GUI 600 may be the interface for the smart phone application that iscreated as part of the voice site illustrated in FIGS. 5A-5K. Thereforethe GUI 600 may be the interface that is presented to the user of thesmart phone 415 on the display of the smart phone 415 when the userconnects to the voice site created by the content provider 405. Thefollowing describes the different components of the GUI 600 with respectto the system 400 that is described with reference to FIG. 4 and theapplication development tool interface 500 that is described withreference to FIGS. 5A-5N. However, the GUI 600 and the associatedmultimodal application may be associated with other systems, contentproviders or application developers, among others.

FIG. 6A illustrates a GUI 605 that is presented to the user of the smartphone 415 on the display of the smart phone 415 when the user calls thevoice site created by the content provider 405 using the nativetelephony application 416 in the smart phone 415. When the user callsthe voice site and establishes a voice connection between the smartphone 415 and the MM-IVR 470, the smart phone 415 may receive multimodalinstructions from the application server 425 via the push notificationservice 420. The multimodal application 418 is not launched on the smartphone, and therefore the multimodal instructions may be received by thenotification application 417. Based on receiving the multimodalinstructions, the notification application 417 generates a pop-upnotification 605 a that is displayed on the display of the smart phone415. The pop-up notification 605 a prompts the user to launch themultimodal application by clicking the view button. The user may opt notto launch the multimodal application, in which case the user clicks the“Close” button, which causes the pop-up notification to disappear andthe native telephony application 605 b returns to the foreground on thedisplay of the smart phone 415. However, if the user opts to launch themultimodal application, the user clicks the “View” button on the pop-upnotification. This causes the pop-up notification to disappear and thenative telephony application 605 b to run minimized in the background,while the multimodal application 418 is launched.

FIG. 6B illustrates a GUI 610 that is presented to the user of the smartphone 415 on the display of the smart phone 415 when the multimodalapplication 418 is launched due to the user clicking the “View” buttonon the pop-notification 605 a. When the multimodal application 418 islaunched, the multimodal application 418 may present a splash image 610a on the display of the smart phone 415. The splash image 610 a may bepushed to the smart phone 415 by the application server 425 based on a‘PushImage’ action in a multimodal action page. The splash image 610 amay identify to the user of the smart phone 415 that the user haslaunched the multimodal application associated with the customer servicevoice site of ‘Cable Wireless Corp.’ In addition or as an alternative todisplaying the splash image 610 a, the user may also hear through thespeakers of the smart phone 415 the voice site say, using the nativetelephony application 416, “Hi. Welcome to Cable Wireless Inc.'s modemtroubleshooting hotline.” This is based on scripts executed by theMM-IVR 470 when the MM-IVR processes the message page 515 as part ofrunning the voice site when the user of the smart phone 415 has calledthe voice site.

The user also may be provided with the option to save the splash image610 a in the local storage of the smart phone 415 by clicking on the‘Save Image’ button 610 b. If the user saves the splash image 610 a inthe local storage of the smart phone 415 by clicking on the ‘Save Image’button 610 b, then for future launches of the multimodal application418, the splash image 610 a may be retrieved by the multimodalapplication 418 from the local storage of the smart phone 415, therebyobviating the need for the application server 425 to push the splashimage 610 a to the multimodal application 418. Since the nativetelephony application 416 is running in the background while themultimodal application 418 is displayed on the display of the smartphone 415, the user may switch to the native telephony application 416by touching the strip 610 c near the top of the display above the splashimage 610 a. This minimizes the GUI 610 of the multimodal application418 and returns the GUI 605 b of the native telephony application 416 tothe foreground of the display of the smart phone 415.

FIG. 6C illustrates a GUI 615 that is presented to the user of the smartphone 415 on the display of the smart phone 415 when the MM-IVR 470 hasprocessed the page 520 that is created by the content provider 405 aspart of the content provider 405's voice site. The keyboard 615 a andthe text input field 615 b are displayed to the user on the display ofthe smart phone 415 based on instructions received by the multimodalapplication 418 from the application server 425. The application serversends a multimodal instruction to the multimodal application 418 to showthe keyboard 615 a and the text input field 615 b when the applicationserver executes a script associated with the multimodal action page 520that specifies the action ‘Show Keyboard.’ In addition to viewing thekeyboard 615 a and the text input field 615 b, the user may also hearthrough the speakers of the smart phone 415 the voice site say, usingthe native telephony application 416, “Please enter your email addressusing the keyboard on your phone. Say ‘continue’ when you are done.”This is based on scripts executed by the MM-IVR 470 when the MM-IVRprocesses the message page 525. Based on the multimodal application 418display and the audible prompts, the user may enter a text string in theinput field 615 b by typing alphanumeric characters using the keyboard615 a. The text string may identify an email address associated with theuser, e.g., ‘pperera@angel.com.’

The native telephony application 416 is runs in the background at alltimes while the multimodal application 418 is displayed on the displayof the smart phone 415, so that the user remains connected to the MM-IVR470 over the voice communications session. From any multimodalapplication GUI, the user may switch to the native telephony application416 by touching the strip, e.g., 615 c, near the top of the multimodalapplication 418 GUI display. This minimizes the GUI, e.g., 615, of themultimodal application 418 and returns the GUI 605 b of the nativetelephony application 416 to the foreground of the display of the smartphone 415.

FIG. 6D illustrates a GUI 620 that is presented to the user of the smartphone 415 on the display of the smart phone 415 when the MM-IVR 470 hasprocessed the multimodal action page 545 that is created by the contentprovider 405 as part of the content provider 405's voice site. The image620 a may be pushed to the smart phone 415 by the application server 425based on the ‘PushImage’ action 545 a in the multimodal action page 545.The image 620 a may be associated with the image file‘D_Link_DSL_Modem.png’ 545 b and may provide to the user of the smartphone 415 a visual identification of the model of the wireless cablemodem product is used by the user. In addition to viewing the image 620a, the user may also hear through the speakers of the smart phone 415the voice site say, using the native telephony application 416, “Goahead and unplug the modem, as shown in the image, wait 10 seconds, thenplug it back in. When you've done that, say, I'm done.” This prompt isaudibly communicated to the user by the voice site through theexecution, by the MM-IVR 470, of one or more scripts corresponding tothe message page 550. The combination of the visual cues provided by theimage 620 a and the audible instructions provided by the voice siteprovides a rich multimodal experience to the user. This may facilitateeasier troubleshooting of the product by the user and/or enhance theuser's customer service experience.

The user also may be provided with the option to save the splash image620 a in the local storage of the smart phone 415 by clicking on the‘Save Image’ button 620 b. If the user saves the splash image 620 a inthe local storage of the smart phone 415 by clicking on the ‘Save Image’button 620 b, then for future launches of the multimodal application418, the splash image 620 a may be retrieved by the multimodalapplication 418 from the local storage of the smart phone 415, therebyobviating the need for the application server 425 to push the splashimage 620 a to the multimodal application 418.

FIG. 7 is a flow chart illustrating an example of a process 700 that maybe implemented by a smart phone to enable multimodal interactions withan enhanced voice site. The process 700 may be performed, for example,by the smart phone 415 when the user interacts with the voice sitecreated by the content provider 405, using the native telephonyapplication 416 and/or the multimodal application 418. The followingdescribes the process 700 being performed by components of thecommunications system 400 that is described with reference to FIG. 4.However, the process 700 may be performed by other communicationssystems or system configurations.

The smart phone 415 places a call to a voice site in response to a userrequest (702). The voice site is created by the content provider 405using the content provider web interface 442 provided by the callhandling system 440. The user of the smart phone 415 may place the callto receive customer service from the voice site. For example, thecontent provider 405 may be a cable company (e.g., Cable Wireless Corp.that is described with reference to FIG. 6B) and the voice site mayprovide technical support to subscribers/product users of the cablecompany. The user of the smart phone 415 may be using a wireless cablemodem provided by the cable company and therefore calls the voice siteto troubleshoot an issue that user is experiencing with the wirelesscable modem.

When the call is connected, the voice site may audibly greet the user byplaying a prompt that is heard by the user through the speakers of thesmart phone 415. During the user's interaction with the enhanced voicesite, the smart phone 415 also may receive a data message from the voicesite (704). The data message may be sent by the MM-IVR 470 and/or theapplication server 425 as a result of execution of scripts associatedwith the voice site while the user is interacting with the voice site.If the user has not registered for multimodal interaction with the callhandling system 440, the data message may be, for example, a textmessage (e.g., a Short Message Service (SMS) message) that is receivedusing a text messaging application on the smart phone 415. Along withreceiving the data message, the user may hear audible information fromthe voice site that informs the user that the user is going to receivethe text message that will include a link selectable to allow the userto register for multimodal interaction with the call handling system440. The link may be, for example, a hyperlink selectable to access anetwork location from which the user can download and install themultimodal application associated with the voice site.

If the data message is a text message having a link selectable toregister for multimodal interaction with the call handling system 440(or, in some implementations, with only a particular voice site) (706),the user may select the link to download and install the multimodal (MM)application by, for example, using a graphical pointer or otherselection mechanism supported by the smart phone to click or otherwiseselect the link provided in the text message (708). The user may opt notto select the link to install the MM application (708), in which eventthe call with the voice site continues as an interactive voice-only call(720). In an alternative implementation, if the user opts not to installthe MM application, the call with the voice site is terminated by thevoice site.

If the user selects the link to install the application, the smart phoneautomatically downloads and installs the MM application (722). In analternative implementation, clicking on the link provided in the textmessage takes the user to a network location where the user has toperform further actions to download and install the MM application. Thesmart phone 415 may have multiple MM applications installed, where eachof the multiple MM applications is used for multimodal interaction witha different voice site. In an alternative implementation, the smartphone 415 may have a single MM application installed, where the singleMM application is configured to handle multimodal interactions formultiple voice sites.

Once the MM application is installed on the smart phone 415, an icon maybe provided on the display of the smart phone 415 associated with the MMapplication. The smart phone may launch the MM application (724) inresponse to the user clicking on the icon associated with the MMapplication that is provided on the display of the MM application. TheMM application may be, for example, the multimodal application 418.Alternatively, immediately after the MM application is installed, thesmart phone may automatically launch the MM application to enable theuser to register for multimodal interaction. Once the MM application islaunched, the MM application may automatically send registrationinformation to the voice site (726). The registration information may besent to the application server 425 via the data network 410 thatforwards the registration information to the MM-IVR 470 that isexecuting instructions associated with the voice site. In an alternativeimplementation, the registration information may be sent via the datanetwork 410 to the push notification service 420 that stores theregistration information locally. In addition or as an alternative tostoring the registration information locally, the push notificationservice 420 may forward the registration information to the applicationserver 425 and/or the MM-IVR 470. In another alternative implementation,the registration information may be sent automatically to the callhandling system 440 via the voice network 430; the registrationinformation may be received by the user registration module 448 and/orthe call center module 450.

In yet another alternative implementation, once the MM application islaunched, the user enters the caller id on a form that is displayed onthe display of the smart phone 415 using the MM application. The MMapplication communicates with the push notification service 420 toobtain a unique token from the push notification service 420 thatidentifies the smart phone 415. The caller id entered by the user on theform and the unique token obtained from the push notification service420 are sent by the MM application to the application server 425 toregister the smart phone 415.

The sending of the registration information to the voice site (726) maybe done only once, at the time when the MM application is installed andlaunched for the first time. It may not be required to send theregistration information for subsequent calls to the voice site and/orfor subsequent uses of the MM application. In an alternativeimplementation, it may be required to send the registration informationevery time a call is established with the voice site.

After the registration information has been sent and processed by theMM-IVR 470 and/or the application server 425, the smart phone 415 mayreceive additional data messages from the voice site (704). The smartphone 415 processes the data messages using the MM application, the textapplication, and/or other applications on the smart phone 415. Forexample, the MM application may prompt the user of the smart phone 415to send additional identifying information. This may happen after the MMapplication has displayed a greeting page and/or the MM-IVR 470 has sentaudible greeting information associated with the voice site (e.g., asdescribed with reference to FIG. 6B), and then the MM applicationdisplays a keyboard and text input field on the display of the smartphone 415, e.g., as described with reference to FIG. 6C. In addition, asdescribed with reference to FIG. 6C, the MM-IVR 470 may audibly promptthe user to enter an email address associated with the user in the textinput field that is displayed by the MM application. The email addressmay be used, for example, to locate a subscriber account for the userthat is associated with the voice site. Information on the subscriberaccount may be stored by the call handling system 440 and may beaccessible to the MM-IVR 470 and/or the application server 425. Theinformation entered by the user in the text input field is communicatedby the MM application to the application server 425, which forwards theinformation to the MM-IVRF 470 for processing, for example as describedwith reference to the transaction page 535 illustrated in FIG. 5G.

If the data message is not a text message having a link for installingthe MM application (706) and is not an MM instruction message forprocessing by the MM application (710), the message may be processed inaccordance with a corresponding other application to communicate itscontents to the user (712). For example, the message may be a secondtext message (e.g., SMS message) that provides other information to theuser (e.g., an address of interest to the user) that may be processed bythe text messaging application on the smart phone to enable the user toaccess the contents of the message.

On the other hand, if the message is a MM instruction message forprocessing by the MM application, then the smart phone 415 may determinewhether the received MM instruction message is the first MM instructionmessage that has been received by the smart phone 415 for the MMapplication (714) for the current call. If the smart phone 415determines that the received message is the not first MM instructionmessage that has been received for the current call, then the MMapplication is known to be currently running and consequently the smartphone 415 forwards the received message to the MM application. Themessage is then processed as an MM instruction by the MM application(730), for example as described with reference to FIGS. 6B-6D.

If the smart phone 415 determines that the received message is the firstMM instruction message that has been received for the MM application forthe current call, the smart phone 415 checks whether the MM applicationis running (716). If the MM application is running, the smart phone 415forwards the received message to the MM application. The message is thenprocessed as an MM instruction by the MM application (730), for exampleas described with reference to FIGS. 6B-6D.

If the MM application is not running, the smart phone 415 may display anotification pop-up on the display of the smart phone 415 asking theuser to launch the MM application, e.g., as shown in the GUI 605 in FIG.6A. When the user receives the pop-up notification on the display of thesmart phone 415, the user has to decide whether to accept the MM message(718), i.e., whether to launch the MM application to accept the MMmessage. The user may decide not to launch the MM application, forexample, by clicking the ‘Cancel’ button on the pop-up notification thatis displayed on the display of the smart phone 415, as shown in the GUI605 of FIG. 6A. Then the call that the user has placed to the voice sitecontinues as an interactive voice-only call (720). In an alternativeimplementation, if the user opts not to launch the MM application, thecall with the voice site is terminated by the voice site.

Alternatively, the user may decide to launch the MM application (728),for example, by clicking the ‘View’ button on the pop-up notificationthat is displayed on the display of the smart phone 415, as shown in theGUI 605 of FIG. 6A. Once the MM application is launched, the receivedmessage is processed as an MM instruction by the MM application (730),for example as described with reference to FIGS. 6B-6D.

FIG. 8 is a flow chart illustrating an example of a process 800 that isexecuted by a call handling system when a user calls an enhanced voicesite using a smart phone. The process 800 may be performed, for example,by the call handling system 440 when the user of the smart phone 415calls and interacts with the voice site created by the content provider405, using the native telephony application 416 and/or the multimodalapplication 418. Specifically, the process 800 may be performed by theMM-IVR 470 and the application server 425 as components of the callhandling system 440. Accordingly, the following describes the process800 being performed by components of the communications system 400 thatis described with reference to FIG. 4. However, the process 800 also maybe performed by other communications systems or system configurations.

The call handling system 440 may receive a call from a user telephonedevice that initiates a voice communications session (802) between thecall handling system and the user telephone device. The call may beplaced by the user of the smart phone 415 to a number associated withthe voice site created by the content provider 405. The call is receivedby the call handling system 440 because the call handling system 440hosts the voice site created by the content provider 405. The call maybe received by the call reception 450 that is part of the MM-IVR 470 inthe call handling system 440.

Upon receiving the call from the user telephone device, the callhandling system 440 identifies the voice site that the user is trying toreach based on the called number (804). As described with reference toFIG. 5A, every voice site hosted by the call handling system 440 mayhave one or more phone numbers uniquely associated with the voice site.Therefore the call handling system 440 may analyze the receivedtransmission of information from the user telephone device and determinethe called number that the user telephone device is attempting to reach.Based on analyzing the called number, the call handling system 440 maybe able to identify the particular voice site that the user is trying toconnect to, e.g. the voice site created by the content provider 405.

Once the voice site is identified, the call handling system 440determines whether the voice site is an enhanced voice site (806). Asdescribed previously, an enhanced voice site is a voice site that isconfigured for multimodal interaction with callers to the voice site.The call handling system 440 may make the determination based oninformation that is stored at the call handling system 440 associatedwith the voice site. For example, when a content provider creates avoice site, based on the information provided by the content providerand/or the types of pages created by the content provider, the callhandling system 440 may tag the created voice site as either a standardvoice site or an enhanced voice site.

If the call handling system determines that the voice site is a standardvoice site, then the call handling system 440 enables the interactivevoice response (IVR) system to receive information from/provideinformation to the user via standard voice communications (808). The IVRmay be, for example, the MM-IVR 470, but handling standard calls withoutmultimodal interaction. In an alternative implementation, the IVRhandling standard calls via standard voice communications may bedifferent than the MM-IVR 470 that is configured to handle calls toenhanced voice sites including multimodal interaction. In the discussiongoing forward, the IVR and the MM-IVR 470 will be taken to refer to thesame entity and therefore the terms may be used interchangeably. Uponbeing enabled by the call handling system 440, the IVR retrieves thepages associated with the called voice site (for example, by using thepage retrieval module 468) and executes VoiceXML scripts correspondingto the called voice site (for example, by using the page executionmodule 464) as standard voice pages.

On the other hand, if the call handling system 440 determines that thecalled voice site is an enhanced voice site (e.g., the voice sitedescribed by FIGS. 5A-5K created by the content provider 405), then thecall handling system 440 determines whether the calling telephone deviceis a smart phone (810). This determination may be made, for example, bydata sent with the transmission of information when the call from thetelephone device is received by the call handling device 440. The datamay, for example, uniquely identify the phone. Using the phoneidentification, the call handling system 440 may look up in a databasethat provides information on whether the telephone is a standardtelephonic device or a smart phone. The database may be part of the callhandling system 440, or it may be an external database provided by anindependent entity different from the call handling system 440 andaccessed by the call handling system 440. In an alternativeimplementation, the data sent with the transmission of information whenthe call from the telephone device is received by the call handlingdevice 440 may contain information sufficient to determine whether thetelephone is a standard telephonic device or a smart phone.

If the call handling system 440 determines that the telephone is astandard telephonic device, then the call handling system 440 enablesthe interactive voice response (IVR) system to receive informationfrom/provide information to the user via standard voice communications(808), as described previously. The IVR retrieves the pages associatedwith the called voice site and executes, for example, VoiceXML scriptscorresponding to the called voice site as standard voice pages. Thecalled voice site may be an enhanced voice site, but it may beconfigured to interact with a standard telephonic device using standardvoice pages. For example, the enhanced voice site may include scriptscorresponding to a subset of standard voice pages (e.g., message pagesand question pages) that are processed during the caller's interactionwith the voice site instead of the scripts corresponding to themultimodal action pages in response to the call handling system 440determining that the telephone is a standard telephonic device ratherthan a smart phone. In this manner, the same enhanced voice site is ableto provide service to both standard telephonic devices and smart phones.

On the other hand, if the call handling system 440 determines that thetelephone is a smart phone, then the call handling system 440 proceedsto check whether the smart phone is registered (812), i.e., whether thesmart phone has previously downloaded, installed and launched the MMapplication that is associated with the called voice site. The callhandling system 440 may determine the registration status of the smartphone by performing a lookup of the information processed by the userregistration module 448. In addition or as an alternative to performingthe lookup of the information processed by the user registration module448, the call handling system 440 may obtain the registrationinformation of the smart phone from the application server 425 and/orthe push notification service 420.

If the call handling system 440 determines that the smart phone isregistered, then the call handling system 440 configures the system formultimodal communications (820) between the MM application and theenhanced voice site that is being called, as is described below.

If the call handling system 440 determines that the smart phone is notregistered, then the call handling system 440 asks the user, using theIVR via voice communications, to register (814). For example, the MM-IVR470 may send an audible message to the smart phone over the establishedvoice communications session that asks the user of the smart phonewhether the user wants to download and install the MM application thatwill allow the user to engage with the voice site through multimodalinteraction.

Upon receiving the message sent by the IVR asking the user to register,the user of the smart phone sends back a response. The user may send aback a voice response, saying “Yes” or “No”, or the user may press abutton on the smart phone dial pad to indicate the response, forexample, by pressing “1” for “Yes” and “2” for “No.” Based on receivingthe response from the user, the IVR analyzes the received response anddetermines whether the user wants to register (816). The IVR maydetermine that the user does not want to register, for example, if thereceived transmission indicates that the user has either said “No” orpressed the “2” button on the dial pad of the smart phone. If the IVRdetermines that the user does not want to register, then IVR is enabledto receive information from/provide information to the user via standardvoice communications (808), as described previously. The IVR retrievesthe pages associated with the called voice site and executes VoiceXMLscripts corresponding to the called voice site as standard voice pages.The called voice site may be an enhanced voice site, but it may beconfigured to interact with a standard telephonic device using standardvoice pages.

Alternatively, the IVR may determine that the user wants to register,for example, if the received transmission indicates that the user haseither said “Yes” or pressed the “1” button on the dial pad of the smartphone. The IVR then sends a text message to the smart phone with a linkto download and install the MM application (818). In addition to sendingthe text message, the IVR may send a voice transmission to the smartphone that informs the user via audible information that the user isgoing to receive the text message that will contain a link to a networklocation from where the user can download and install the MM applicationassociated with the voice site the user has called.

After the user downloads and installs the MM application associated withthe voice site, the user launches the MM application. When the MMapplication (e.g. multimodal application 418) is launched, a datacommunications session may be established between the MM applicationrunning on the smart phone and the application server 425 over the datanetwork 410.

The MM application, when launched for the first time, may automaticallycommunicate with the push notification service 420 to obtain a uniquetoken from the push notification service 420 that identifies the smartphone 415. The MM application also may display a form on the display ofthe smart phone 415 and prompt the user to enter the caller idassociated with the smart phone 415 on the form that is displayed usingthe MM application. The caller id entered by the user on the form andthe unique token obtained from the push notification service 420 aresent by the MM application to the application server 425 to register thesmart phone 415. The application server 425 may store the registrationinformation for the smart phone 415 in the application server 425 (819),e.g., in the data store 427. In addition or as an alternative to theapplication server 425 storing the registration information, theapplication server 425 may send the registration information to theMM-IVR 470, which forwards the information to the user registrationmodule 448 so that the smart phone is registered with the MM-IVR 470 asusing the MM application associated with the voice site being called.

In an alternative implementation, the MM application, when launched forthe first time, may automatically send information to the applicationserver 425 that uniquely identifies the smart phone and/or the MMapplication associated with the voice site that is being called. Theapplication server 425 may create a registration token for the smartphone and store it in the application server 425 (819), e.g., in thedata store 427. In another alternative implementation, the MMapplication may automatically send information to the push notificationservice 420 that uniquely identifies the smart phone and/or the MMapplication associated with the voice site that is being called. Thepush notification service 420 may create a registration token for thesmart phone and store it locally. In addition or as an alternative tostoring it locally, the push notification service 420 may forward theregistration token to the application server 425, which in turn mayforward the token to the MM-IVR 470.

Once the data communications session is established between the MMapplication running on the smart phone and the application server 425,the call handling system 440 configures the system for multimodalcommunications (820) between the MM application and the enhanced voicesite that is being called. As described previously with reference toFIG. 1, the call handling system 440 allocates shared memory forinteraction with the smart phone (820 a) and enables the applicationserver 425 and the MM-IVR 470 to read from/write to the shared memory(820 b). Use of the shared memory ensures that both the MM-IVR 470 andthe application server 425 have a consistent view of the multimodalsession that is ongoing between the smart phone and the enhanced voicesite.

Once the call handling system 440 is configured to facilitate themultimodal interaction between the smart phone and the enhanced voicesite, the MM-IVR 470 instructs the application server 425 to send MMinstructions from the application server 425 to the MM applicationrunning on the smart phone and to listen for page commands (824). Forexample, the application server 425 may push the welcome splash image610 a to the multimodal application 418 running on the smart phone 415that is described with reference to FIG. 6B.

The application server 425 and/or the MM-IVR 470 also may receiveidentifying information associated with the user account from the MMapplication (826) running on the smart phone. For example, as describedwith reference to FIG. 6C, the user of the smart phone 415 may type inan email address associated with the subscription account maintained bythe user with the Cable Wireless Corp. whose customer service voice siteis called by the multimodal application 418. In an alternativeimplementation, such identifying information is not required andtherefore the application server 425 and/or the MM-IVR 470 does receiveidentifying information associated with the user account from the MMapplication.

Subsequently the enhanced voice site may interact with the smart phoneusing the application server 425 and the IVR (828). The MM-IVR 470retrieves the pages associated with the voice site (for example, byusing the page retrieval module 468) and executes scripts based onprocessing voice pages and logic pages (828 a), and interacts with theuser of the smart phone using audio/voice information (828 d) throughthe native telephony application on the smart phone, as describedpreviously with reference to FIGS. 5A-5K. Based on instructions receivedfrom the MM-IVR 470, application server 425 executes multimodal actionpages and transaction pages (828 b) and exchanges text, images and/orvideo with the smart phone (828 c) using the MM application running onthe smart phone.

When the call handling system 440 receives a signal from the smartphone, the call handling system 440 checks if the signal is to terminatethe call (830). If the signal is meant for other data transmission, forexample further multimodal interaction, then the call handling system440 determines that the call is not to be terminated and thereforecontinues interaction with the smart phone using the application server425 and the MM-IVR 470 (828).

However, the signal from the smart phone may indicate that the call isto be terminated, for example, when the smart phone closes the nativetelephony application and/or closes the MM application. If the callhandling system 440 determines that the call is to be terminated, thenthe call handling system 440 sends instructions to the applicationserver 425 to terminate the data communications session and sendsinstructions to the IVR to terminate the voice communications session(832). Based on the instructions received form the call handling system440, the data communications session between the MM application and theapplications server 425 is closed, and/or the voice communicationssession between the native telephony application on the smart phone andthe MM-IVR 470 is closed. In an alternative implementation, the data andvoice communications sessions are automatically terminated when the userof the smart phone terminates the call, e.g., by hanging up, andtherefore the call handling system 440 does not have to send additionalinstructions to the application server 425 or the MM-IVR 470.

FIG. 9 is flowchart illustrating an example of a process 900 forenabling a user of a smart phone to communicate information to a callcenter or to an interactive voice response system. The process 900 maybe performed, for example, by the call handling system 440 when the userof the smart phone 415 calls and interacts with an enhanced voice sitethat is hosted by the call handling system 440, using the nativetelephony application 416 and/or the multimodal application 418.Specifically, the process 900 may be performed by the MM-IVR 470 and/orthe call center 480, and the application server 425 as components of thecall handling system 440. The voice site may be the voice site createdby the content provider 405, or it may be a different voice site that ishosted by the call handling system 440. Accordingly, the followingdescribes the process 900 being performed by components of thecommunications system 400 that is described with reference to FIG. 4.However, the process 900 also may be performed by other communicationssystems or system configurations.

The user of the smart phone 415 is able to interact with the phone toindicate a desire to request a service from a service provider (905).The service provider in this context is different from the provider ofthe voice site hosting service that provides the call handling system440. The service provider may be, for example, a company that hascreated a voice site using the call handling system 440 that is hostedby the call handling system 440. The user may indicate a desire torequest a service from the service provider by selecting a graphicallydisplayed icon on a graphical user interface (GUI) of the smart phone415 to thereby invoke an MM application stored in the smart phone 415with which the user can interact to initiate a service request. Theservice may be, for example, a request to purchase a particular productor service offered by or made available through the service provider.

In response to the indication, the smart phone 415, through execution ofthe MM application, visually presents to the user a single-field or amulti-field form to fill out (910). A single-field form is a form thatincludes a single data field in which the user is prompted to providedata (i.e., a field in the form that the user is instructed to fill inor otherwise complete by providing input). A multi-field form is a formthat includes multiple such data fields A form may be, for example, atextual form having one or more blank spaces indicative of the datafields that are available to be filled in with data provided by the userof the smart phone 415. The user is able to fill out the form byproviding text, audio, image, and/or video input into the smart phone415 and initiate the submission of a service request by the smart phone415 to an application server 425 across a data network 410 (915). Forexample, after providing the form data, the user may initiate submissionof the service request by depressing a button on the smart phone 415 orby selecting a graphical element displayed by the GUI of the MMapplication on the smart phone 415.

A data communications session is setup between the smart phone 415 andthe application server 425 in response to the service request (920), andat least some of the form information provided by the user iscommunicated to the application server 425 during the datacommunications session (925). Optionally, the smart phone 415, under thedirection of the MM application, may provide additional callerinformation that is stored locally on the smart phone 415 but that isnot otherwise specifically provided by the user in connection with thespecific service request to be submitted by the smart phone 415. Suchadditional information may include, for example, a phone number of thesmart phone, a profile of the user that includes the interests and/ordemographics of the user, calendar information of the user, address bookinformation of the user, information about the applications resident onthe smart phone, and an identification number or model number of thesmart phone. A user of the smart phone 415 may, for example, havepreviously set privacy preferences stored on the smart phone 415indicating that such information may be accessed by some or all of theapplications on the smart phone 415 for processing service requests orfor other purposes.

The application server 425 provides a phone number of the smart phone415 to a call handling system 440. The call handling system 440 mayinclude an MM-IVR 470 and/or a call center 480. The call handling system440 requests that the call center 480 and/or the MM-IVR 470 initiates anoutbound call to the phone number to provide service to the user of thesmart phone 415 (930). In other implementations, the application server425 provides a phone number of another phone designated by or for theuser as the phone over which the user desires to receive service. Theother phone number may, for example, be provided by the user as inputinto one of the multiple fields of the form and communicated to theapplication server as part of the form information provided by the smartphone 415. The application server 425 may, for example, provide thephone number of the smart phone 415 or other phone number to the callcenter 480 or MM-IVR 470 over the data network 410.

The call center 480 or MM-IVR 470 initiates an outbound call to thephone number of the smart phone 415 (or other designated phone number)across a voice network 430 (935) and, upon the user answering the call(940), a voice communications session is setup between the call center480 or MM-IVR 470 and the smart phone 415 (945). In someimplementations, the application server 425 provides the forminformation and, optionally, the other caller information received fromthe smart phone 415 to the call center 480 or MM-IVR 470 prior to theoutbound call being made to enable identification of the right-skilledagent or the correct IVR script (or voice site) to be used for theoutbound call that best serves the user's service needs. If the userdoes not answer the call (940), the call center 480 or the MM-IVR 470communicates this to the application server 425 (955) and, in someimplementations, the application server 425 may terminate the datacommunications session with the smart phone 415 (960).

The application server 425 enables the MM-IVR 470 or call center 480 toaccess at least some of the form information and, optionally, othercaller information received from the smart phone 415 prior to, upon, orsubsequent to the user answering the call (950). For example, if theoutbound call is made by an agent at the call center 480, at least someof the form information and/or optional other caller information may beprovided to the agent as a screen pop prior to, upon, or subsequent tothe user answering the outbound call. The form information and optionalother caller information may enable the agent to better serve the user'sneeds by providing context information for the phone call/servicerequest. The application server 425 may, for example, provide the forminformation and/or other optional caller information to the call center480 or MM-IVR 470 over the data network 410.

If the MM-IVR 470 or the call center 480 is very busy, the outbound callrequest may be placed in a queue until a telephone line of the MM-IVR470 or an appropriate agent at the call center 450 becomes available. Insome implementations, the call center 480 or MM-IVR 470 may provide theapplication server 425 information indicating that the outbound callrequest has been placed in a queue and may additionally provide anestimate of the wait time before the outbound call will be made. Theapplication server 425 may communicate this information to the smartphone 415, which, under the direction of the MM application, may displaythe information to the user during the previously established datacommunications session. The smart phone 415, under the direction of theMM application, may prompt the user to indicate whether he or she wishesto wait to receive the outbound call. If the user indicates that he orshe does not wish to wait for the outbound call, the smart phone 415 maycommunicate this to the application server 425 and the applicationserver 425 may request that the MM-IVR 470 or call center 480 remove theoutbound call request from the queue. In some implementations, theapplication server 425 also may terminate the data session with thesmart phone 415 in response to the user indicating that he or she doesnot wish to wait to receive service via the outbound call.

In some implementations, upon a voice communications session being setupbetween the user of the smart phone 415 and the MM-IVR 470 or callcenter 480, the application server 425 may terminate the datacommunications session with the smart phone 415. In otherimplementations, the data communications session between the applicationserver 425 and the smart phone 415 may persist simultaneously with thevoice communications session between the smart phone 415 and the MM-IVR470 or call center 480.

In implementations in which the data communications session and thevoice communications session concurrently persist, the user may bepresented with additional single-field or multi-field forms to be filledout by the user via the smart phone 415 in real-time while the userinteracts with the MM-IVR 470 or the agent at the call center 480. Thedelivery of the additional forms may be triggered by the MM-IVR 470 orby the agent at the call center 480 based on interactions with the userduring the voice communications session. For example, the MM-IVR 470 mayprocess scripts for a voice site that includes a multimodal action pagehaving a “PushForm” action parameter with a value parameter thatindicates a name for a file that stores the form to be pushed to thesmart phone 415. As the user interacts with the scripts corresponding tothe various pages of the voice site (including, for example, voicemessage pages and voice question pages), the user interaction may leadto the MM-IVR 470 processing a multimodal action page that sends an MMinstruction to the MM application that includes the action parameter“PushForm” and the value parameter “Form_AB” corresponding to a filethat stores a form having the name “AB.” In some implementations, theMM-IVR 470 may use multiple multimodal action pages to push a form to auser and to then receive corresponding form information from the user.

Upon the delivery of an additional form being triggered by the MM-IVR470 or by the call center agent, a signal is communicated from theMM-IVR 470 or call center 480 to the application server 425 over, forexample, the data network 410. In response to the signal, theapplication server 425 may communicate an MM instruction to enable thesmart phone 415 to access and download the appropriate single-field ormulti-field form over, for example, the data network 410 during the datacommunications session. The smart phone 415 may then present theappropriate form to the user for entry of additional form information.After entry of the additional form information by the user, the smartphone 415 may provide all or some of the additional form information tothe application server 425 that, in turn, may provide to or otherwiseenable access to the additional form information to the MM-IVR 470 orthe call center 480 (or agent) in real-time during the call. In thismanner, the user is able to provide information to the MM-IVR 470 or theagent at the call center 480 both via speaking to the MM-IVR 470 or tothe agent and by providing form input (e.g., text, audio, image, andvideo input) through interactions with the smart phone 415 in real-timeduring the call with the MM-IVR 470 or the agent.

While the above-described processes and systems involve an MM-IVR 470 ora call center 480 making an outbound call to the recipient, otherimplementations may differ. For example, in some implementations, ratherthan the MM-IVR 470 or call center 480 placing an outbound call, thesmart phone 415, under the direction of the MM application, insteadinitiates a call to the MM-IVR 470 or to the call center 480 prior to,concurrently with, or subsequent to establishing the data communicationssession with the application server 425 and submitting the forminformation to the application server 425. In these implementations, theapplication server 425 may provide the MM-IVR 470 or the call center 480with the form information during the voice communications session setupbetween the smart phone 415 and the MM-IVR 470 or the call center 480.For example, the application server 425 may provide the form informationupon receiving a signal from the MM-IVR 470 or from the call center 480requesting the information or, additionally or alternatively, upon beingrequested to do so by the smart phone 415. If the MM-IVR 470 or the callcenter 480 is busy, the call placed by the user may be placed in theinbound call queue and the MM-IVR 470 or the call center 480 may providean estimated wait time to the user of the smart phone 415 directly orvia the application server 425 as discussed previously. As before, theuser of the smart phone 415 can then choose to wait or not wait to beconnected to an agent of the call center 480 or to the MM-IVR 470.

The above-described techniques for enabling a user to push informationto a call center and/or to an IVR may offer various benefits. Inparticular, if the user of the smart phone is interacting with an IVR,the described techniques may allow the number of data gatheringoperations that are needed in the IVR to be streamlined to only includethose that are best suited for voice interaction (e.g., voicebiometrics, yes/no questions). Any data that is ill-suited to beinggathered through voice interaction can be provided to the IVR via theuser of the smart phone filling out form information that is thencommunicated to the IVR via the application server in real-time.Additionally, in this manner, the IVR may be able to receive input thattoday is impossible to receive (e.g., e-mail addresses) or input thatrequires interactions that challenge Voice User Interface (VUI)usability (e.g., full name capture and address capture).

If the user of the smart phone is interacting with an agent at a callcenter, the above-described techniques also may offer various benefits.Specifically and as stated previously, the outbound call made to thesmart phone may be made by the right-skilled agent (e.g., the agent thatspeaks the language of the user of the smart phone or that isknowledgeable about the product or service type being requested by theuser of the smart phone) or, in other implementations, the call made bythe smart phone to the call center can be routed to the right-skilledagent. Moreover, as described above, the call center can provide morecontextualized handling of the calls by providing the agent with some orall of the collected form information or other information received fromthe smart phone upon the agent receiving or making the call. The forminformation or other information can specify the nature of the calland/or personal information (such as name, e-mail address) of thecaller/call recipient.

While the above-described processes and systems involve an MM-IVR 470 ora call center 480, other implementations may differ. For example, insome implementations, the user of the smart phone 415 fills out asingle-field or a multi-field form prior to initiating a call with acall recipient that is neither an IVR nor an agent at a call center, butrather is simply a user of another smart phone. The application server425 provides the form information to the smart phone of the callrecipient by establishing a data communications session with the smartphone of the call recipient. The information may be provided prior to,upon, or subsequent to a voice communications session being establishedbetween the two smart phones. As before, the application server 425 mayor may not terminate the data communications sessions with the smartphones upon the voice communications session being established betweenthe two smart phones. If the application server 425 does not terminatethe data communications sessions, the application server 425 may againenable the users of the smart phones to fill-in and provide to eachother form data in real-time while the users remain conversing with eachother in the voice communications session.

The disclosed and other examples can be implemented as one or morecomputer program products, i.e., one or more modules of computer programinstructions encoded on a computer readable medium for execution by, orto control the operation of, data processing apparatus. Theimplementations can include single or distributed processing ofalgorithms. The computer readable medium can be a machine-readablestorage device, a machine-readable storage substrate, a memory device,or a combination of one or more them. The term “data processingapparatus” encompasses all apparatus, devices, and machines forprocessing data, including by way of example a programmable processor, acomputer, or multiple processors or computers. The apparatus caninclude, in addition to hardware, code that creates an executionenvironment for the computer program in question, e.g., code thatconstitutes processor firmware, a protocol stack, a database managementsystem, an operating system, or a combination of one or more of them.

A computer program (also known as a program, software, softwareapplication, script, or code) can be written in any form of programminglanguage, including compiled or interpreted languages, and it can bedeployed in any form, including as a standalone program or as a module,component, subroutine, or other unit suitable for use in a computingenvironment. A computer program does not necessarily correspond to afile in a file system. A program can be stored in a portion of a filethat holds other programs or data (e.g., one or more scripts stored in amarkup language document), in a single file dedicated to the program inquestion, or in multiple coordinated files (e.g., files that store oneor more modules, sub programs, or portions of code). A computer programcan be deployed to be executed on one computer or on multiple computersthat are located at one site or distributed across multiple sites andinterconnected by a communications network.

The processes and logic flows described in this document can beperformed by one or more programmable processors executing one or morecomputer programs to perform functions by operating on input data andgenerating output. The processes and logic flows can also be performedby, and apparatus can also be implemented as, special purpose logiccircuitry, e.g., an FPGA (field programmable gate array) or an ASIC(application specific integrated circuit).

Processors suitable for the execution of a computer program include, byway of example, both general and special purpose microprocessors, andany one or more processors of any kind of digital computer. Generally, aprocessor will receive instructions and data from a read only memory ora random access memory or both. The essential elements of a computer caninclude a processor for performing instructions and one or more memorydevices for storing instructions and data. Generally, a computer canalso include, or be operatively coupled to receive data from or transferdata to, or both, one or more mass storage devices for storing data,e.g., magnetic, magneto optical disks, or optical disks. However, acomputer need not have such devices. Computer readable media suitablefor storing computer program instructions and data can include all formsof nonvolatile memory, media and memory devices, including by way ofexample semiconductor memory devices, e.g., EPROM, EEPROM, and flashmemory devices; magnetic disks, e.g., internal hard disks or removabledisks; magneto optical disks; and CD ROM and DVD-ROM disks. Theprocessor and the memory can be supplemented by, or incorporated in,special purpose logic circuitry.

While this document may describe many specifics, these should not beconstrued as limitations on the scope of an invention that is claimed orof what may be claimed, but rather as descriptions of features specificto particular embodiments. Certain features that are described in thisdocument in the context of separate embodiments can also be implementedin combination in a single embodiment. Conversely, various features thatare described in the context of a single embodiment can also beimplemented in multiple embodiments separately or in any suitablesub-combination. Moreover, although features may be described above asacting in certain combinations and even initially claimed as such, oneor more features from a claimed combination can in some cases be excisedfrom the combination, and the claimed combination may be directed to asub-combination or a variation of a sub-combination. Similarly, whileoperations are depicted in the drawings in a particular order, thisshould not be understood as requiring that such operations be performedin the particular order shown or in sequential order, or that allillustrated operations be performed, to achieve desirable results.

Only a few examples and implementations are disclosed. Variations,modifications, and enhancements to the described examples andimplementations and other implementations can be made based on what isdisclosed.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method, using a call handling system, for enabling multi-modal interaction with a telephonic device, the method comprising: receiving a request from a user of the telephonic device to invoke an application on the telephonic device to request a desired service; displaying, using the application, a single-field or a multi-field form to the user; receiving, from the user, information input into the form and an indication to submit the form information with a service request to a call handling system; establishing, using the application, a data communications session across a data network between the telephonic device and an application server associated with the call handling system; providing the form information to the application server during the data communications session; identifying, by the application server and based on the form information, a telephone number of the telephonic device; communicating the identified telephone number from the application server to an interactive voice response (IVR) system of the call handling system; establishing a voice communications session with the telephonic device by initiating an outbound call from the IVR to the telephonic device using the identified telephone number; executing, by the IVR, content of one or more voice pages to exchange voice information with the user during the call via the voice communications session; and executing, by the application server, content of one or more multimedia pages linked to the one or more voice pages to communicate text, image or video information to the user during the call via the data communications session. 